Colorado Judgment Collection
Colorado was handed to this rebuild as a fixed-term-and-renewal state alongside California and Arizona. Reading the statute says otherwise, and the difference matters. C.R.S. 13-52-102(2) gives a district court judgment twenty years to execute and a county court judgment entered on or after 1 July 1981 only six – and when either runs out the judgment is not merely unenforceable, it is considered satisfied in full unless revived. Colorado revives judgments; it does not renew them. Meanwhile subsection (1) runs a third period that most creditors never notice: the judgment lien arises only from the time a certified transcript is recorded and not before, yet it expires six years after the entry of judgment. Record in year five of a twenty-year district judgment and you have bought about one year of lien. Around those three clocks sit rules with the same character – an execution binds nothing until it is physically delivered to the sheriff, whose receipt book is a public record; a filed foreign judgment cannot be executed on for ten days and needs the debtor’s last-known post-office address on an affidavit; and a creditor who wants to reach a homestead must first file a four-item affidavit and a professional appraiser’s affidavit. Each of those asks for a fact about a county, a parcel or a person. That is our half. What we do is search records for a purpose the law recognises and hand back what they show. No Colorado private investigator licence sits behind that, this is not a law practice and not a collection agency, and the statutes described above are given as general information, not as advice on your case.
Three Periods, Three Starting Events
They are set by one statute and they do not expire together.
| The period | How long | Measured from |
|---|---|---|
| The lien on real estate in a county | Six years | Entry of judgment – though the lien does not exist until the transcript is recorded. Records |
| Execution, district court judgment | Twenty years | Entry of judgment. |
| Execution, county court judgment entered on or after 1 July 1981 | Six years | Entry of judgment. |
| Lien on a revived judgment | Six years | Entry of the revived judgment, if a transcript of it is recorded in the same county. |
| Restitution judgment under article 18.5 of title 16 | Until paid in full | The twenty-year limit does not apply. |
| Any single execution | Ninety days | Its date of issue – returnable then unless a sale is pending under levy. |
The row that catches people is the first. Under C.R.S. 13-52-102(1), a certified transcript of the judgment record may be recorded in any county, and from the time of recording that transcript – and not before – the judgment becomes a lien on the debtor’s non-exempt real estate in that county, including real estate acquired there afterwards. The next sentence then sets the term, and it does not measure from the recording: the lien of such judgment expires six years after the entry of judgment.
Read those two sentences together and the arithmetic is unforgiving. Recording is what brings the lien into being; entry is what starts its clock. A creditor with a district court judgment good for twenty years who records a transcript at the four-year mark holds a lien for two more years, not for six and not for sixteen. Nothing at the recorder’s counter says so, and the twenty-year figure everybody quotes for Colorado is about execution, not about security.
The escape is revival, and it too is conditioned on a recording. Where, before the six years expire, the judgment is revived as provided by law and a transcript of the judgment record of the revived judgment – certified by the clerk of the court that entered it – is recorded in the same county where the original transcript was recorded, the lien continues for six years from the entry of the revived judgment. The statute adds that a lien may be obtained on a revived judgment the same way as on an original, and continued the same way. Two acts, in two places, both required. The cross-state comparison of what each lien clock runs from is in the judgment lien guide by state.
Which Court Entered It Decides How Long You Have
And running out does not just end enforcement – it deems the debt paid.
C.R.S. 13-52-102(2)(a) allows execution to issue on a judgment at any time within twenty years from its entry, but not afterwards, unless revived as provided by law – and then adds the consequence in plain words: after twenty years from the entry of final judgment in any court of this state, the judgment shall be considered as satisfied in full, unless so revived. Subsection (2)(b)(I) sets a different figure for county court: for judgments entered in Colorado county courts on or after July 1, 1981, execution may issue only within six years, with the same “considered as satisfied in full” consequence at the end.
The phrasing is worth noticing because it is not the language other states use. Elsewhere a lapsed judgment becomes unenforceable and sits there as a dead instrument. Colorado’s statute treats it as satisfied – the same status it would have if the debtor had paid. That is a stronger form of extinction, and it is one reason revival is worth doing early rather than at the last possible moment.
Subsection (2)(b)(II) removes one category from the twenty-year rule entirely: it does not apply to judgments entered for restitution under article 18.5 of title 16, and execution may issue on those at any time until they are paid in full. Subsection (2)(c) handles a Colorado-specific administrative problem: where, after a transcript of judgment is recorded in a county, some or all of that county is merged with, annexed to, or otherwise becomes part of another county or city and county, whether existing or newly formed, the creditor is relieved of the need to record the transcript again in the new entity. That the legislature bothered to write it says something about how much of Colorado enforcement runs through county recording.
Because the six-year county court period and the six-year lien period both exist, a county court judgment is the case where the two clocks nearly coincide – and a district court judgment is the case where they diverge most, which is exactly where creditors over-estimate what they hold. The state-by-state view of these periods is collected in how long a judgment is good for by state.
Watch: Colorado’s Three Clocks
Why the twenty years everybody quotes is not the number that protects you.
Watch Overview
Revival Asks What You Actually Did to Collect
It is a motion with a show-cause step, not an over-the-counter filing.
Colorado does not have an affidavit you hand to a clerk. Reviving a judgment runs through the court: the Colorado Judicial Branch publishes standard instructions for extending the expiration date of a judgment that route the process through JDF 113, a Motion for Revival of Judgment; JDF 114, a Notice to Show Cause for Revival of Judgment; and JDF 125, an Order for Revival of Judgment, with detailed instructions in JDF 112. The motion is filed in the same court and under the same case number as the original judgment, and it must be filed before the judgment expires.
The part worth planning around is what the motion asks for. Alongside the details of the judgment, the creditor is expected to set out what they have done to try to collect it. A file with a documented history – searches run, addresses developed, garnishments attempted, liens recorded – is a different document from a file where nothing happened for nineteen years, and the difference is not merely presentational when the next step is a notice to show cause. Keeping a dated, sourced record of enforcement effort as it happens is therefore cheaper than reconstructing one under deadline.
The show-cause structure also means revival is not private. The debtor gets notice and an opportunity, which is a reason to have a current, serviceable address well before the motion is drafted rather than after the court asks for one. Where the practical question is whether the judgment is even worth reviving, the honest version of that assessment is in what to do about a judgment-proof debtor, and the general timing discipline in renewing an old judgment before it expires.
An Execution Binds Nothing Until the Sheriff Has It
And Colorado keeps the timestamp in a book the public can read.
C.R.S. 13-52-111, in the 2024 published edition of Title 13, does two things at once. It makes all executions returnable ninety days after their date, and it fixes the moment at which an execution starts to bite: no writ of execution binds the personal property, goods or chattels of the person against whom it is issued until the writ is delivered to the sheriff or other officer for execution. Issuing the writ is not the operative act; handing it over is.
The statute then builds an evidentiary record around that moment. For a better manifestation of the time, the sheriff or other officer must endorse on the back of every such writ the hour, the day of the month, and the year when it was received, and must immediately enter the receipt of the writ and the time of receiving it in a book kept for that purpose at the sheriff’s office. And then the sentence that makes it useful to anyone outside the office: said book shall be a public record and open to the inspection of the public.
For a creditor competing with other creditors over the same personal property, that book is where priority is settled, and it is inspectable. It also means the practical instruction for a Colorado execution is unglamorous – get the writ to the sheriff, and know when it arrived, because an execution sitting in an office drawer binds nothing while it sits there. The section closes by requiring the execution to be returned within ninety days from issue unless a sale is pending under levy, so the window to act on a delivered writ is itself short.
What a writ can be aimed at in the first place is a separate question, and one that turns on research rather than procedure – the general picture is in what assets can be seized on a judgment, and the wage route in our Colorado wage garnishment laws guide.
To Reach a Colorado Homestead, You File First
Four sworn statements, an appraiser, and two offices – before you proceed.
Most states let a creditor levy and leave the debtor to claim the exemption. Colorado reverses the burden for homesteaded property. Under C.R.S. 38-41-206, as published in the 2024 edition of Title 38, before any creditor of the owner of homesteaded property may proceed against that property, the creditor must file with the county clerk and recorder of the proper county and with the sheriff or other proper officer authorised to levy, an affidavit showing four things: a description of the homesteaded property and the name of the claimant of the homestead exemption; the fair market value of the property; that the fair market value less any prior liens or encumbrances exceeds the amount of the homestead exemption fixed by section 38-41-201 for which the claimant qualifies; and that no previous execution arising out of the same judgment has been levied on the property.
Alongside that, the section requires the affidavit of a professional appraiser. Two affidavits, filed in two places, before the creditor may proceed – which converts what is elsewhere a levy decision into a documented equity case that has to be made in advance and at the creditor’s cost. It also means a creditor needs a defensible view of value and of the prior encumbrances before committing, which is exactly the kind of question a title and recorded-lien search answers.
Two neighbouring sections narrow the target further. Section 38-41-203 limits the exemption to property that is occupied as a home by the owner or the owner’s family – so a former residence the debtor has moved out of is a materially different case, and whether it is still occupied is a factual question rather than a legal one. Section 38-41-204 gives the exemption to a surviving spouse or minor children where the owner has died, and provides that where there is neither a surviving spouse nor minor children, the homestead is liable for the debts of the deceased.
The exemption amounts themselves are set by section 38-41-201 – $250,000 where the home is occupied by an owner or the owner’s family, and $350,000 where it is occupied by an owner, an owner’s spouse, or an owner’s dependent who is elderly or disabled, with “elderly” defined in the section as sixty years of age or older. The section was last amended by SB 22-086 with effect from April 2022. What else Colorado shields is mapped in our Colorado asset exemptions creditors reference; section 38-41-205 rounds out the definition by allowing a homestead to consist of a dwelling as defined in 38-41-201.7, a house and lot including manufactured and mobile homes, trailers and trailer coaches, or a farm of any number of acres.
A Judgment Brought Into Colorado Waits Ten Days
And the statute wants the debtor’s post-office address before it will start.
Colorado’s Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act sits at article 53 of title 13. A copy of an authenticated foreign judgment may be filed with the clerk of any Colorado court that would have had jurisdiction over the original action, and once filed it has the same effect and is subject to the same procedures, defences and proceedings for reopening, vacating or staying as a judgment of the Colorado court where it is filed.
Section 13-53-104 then attaches two conditions. At the time of filing, the creditor or their lawyer must make and file with the clerk an affidavit setting out the name and last-known post-office address of both the judgment debtor and the judgment creditor. The clerk promptly mails notice of the filing to the debtor at the address given and notes the mailing in the docket; the notice must include the creditor’s name and post-office address and those of the creditor’s Colorado lawyer, if any. The creditor may also mail its own notice and file proof of mailing, and where it has done so, a failure by the clerk to mail does not affect the enforcement proceedings.
Subsection (3) then imposes the wait: no execution or other process for enforcement of a foreign judgment filed under the article shall issue until ten days after the date the judgment is filed. So an out-of-state creditor arriving in Colorado needs a current, defensible address on day one – not because service depends on it but because the statute makes the address part of the filing itself, and because the ten days start running from a filing that is only as sound as the affidavit behind it. Bringing a judgment across a state line is covered in domesticating a judgment and at greater length in our complete guide to domesticating foreign judgments.
The Short Version
Colorado is a revival state, not a renewal state, and it runs three periods off one judgment. Execution is available for twenty years from entry on a district court judgment and six on a county court judgment entered on or after 1 July 1981 – and at the end the judgment is considered satisfied in full unless revived, which is a harsher outcome than mere unenforceability. Separately, the judgment lien exists only from the moment a certified transcript is recorded in a county, and yet it expires six years after entry, so recording late buys far less than the twenty-year figure suggests; reviving the judgment continues the lien only if a transcript of the revived judgment is recorded in the same county. Revival itself runs through the court on JDF 113, 114 and 125, and the motion asks what you actually did to collect. On the enforcement side, an execution is returnable in ninety days and binds no personal property until it is delivered to the sheriff, whose timestamped receipt book is a public record. Reaching a homestead requires the creditor to file a four-item affidavit plus a professional appraiser’s affidavit with both the county clerk and recorder and the sheriff before proceeding – and the exemption only applies while the property is occupied as a home by the owner or their family. A foreign judgment filed here cannot be executed on for ten days and needs the debtor’s last-known post-office address on an affidavit. Which county, which court, which parcel, still occupied or not: those are records questions, and answering them with sources is our part. General information, not legal advice.
The Affidavit Problem, and Who Solves Which Half
Colorado asks creditors to swear to facts. Somebody has to gather them.
Colorado enforcement has an unusual amount of swearing in it. Section 38-41-206 wants a creditor to state a property’s fair market value on affidavit and to assert that prior encumbrances still leave equity above the exemption. Section 13-53-104 wants a last-known post-office address on affidavit before a foreign judgment can even be filed. The revival motion wants an account of what was actually done to collect. In each case the signature goes on the creditor’s side of the page – and in each case the underlying material has to come from somewhere before it can be sworn to.
Gathering that material is what this firm does. Matching the debtor to the judgment so nothing gets aimed at a namesake. Building a current address out of the records a person still generates instead of forwarding the one the case file carried in. Tracing recorded real property across Colorado counties, so a transcript is filed where a parcel exists and so a revival transcript lands back in the county the first one did. Surfacing prior recorded encumbrances, so a creditor can see whether an equity case is even arguable before paying for an appraisal. Reading, where the records support a view, whether a residence still looks occupied by its owner rather than let out or left behind. All of it drawn from public records and lawfully licensed data under a confirmed permissible purpose, of which enforcing a judgment is one; none of it from pretexting, impersonation, or the contents of private financial accounts. Applied outside Colorado it is our skip tracing services.
Signing and filing stay on the other side. Whether the judgment is still inside its period, whether revival is available and how to plead it, whether the value and encumbrance picture supports going after a homestead, and which remedy to reach for are all Colorado counsel’s calls. Nothing is recorded, moved, delivered to a sheriff, garnished or levied by us, and nobody is approached for payment on your behalf.
There is a request that gets refused regardless of what sits behind it. The Colorado Secretary of State administers an Address Confidentiality Program whose entire function is to keep survivors of domestic violence, sexual offences and stalking out of the residential record trail this work reads for a living. Colorado files sometimes arrive with a civil protection order already in them, or an address of record that exists only to receive mail, or an asserted interest in the debt that cannot be matched to the entered judgment. Read together those are the marks of somebody hiding from an abuser rather than of a collection matter, and the work is refused with the refusal explained. Enforcement is a permissible purpose for locating a debtor. It has never been a key to a protected address.
What arrives at the end is dated, attributed to its source, and carries a plain statement of how much weight it will bear – including the answers nobody wants, that the trail stops here, or that this debtor now appears to be living in another state, at which point the records get followed over the line and the enforcement question goes back to counsel, as in finding a judgment debtor who moved out of state. First reads on legitimate Colorado matters typically land within 24 hours. Where real estate is the entire question, the method is set out in finding a judgment debtor’s real estate.
The Order Colorado’s Statutes Actually Impose
Which court, then which county, then which parcel.
Identify the Court and the Entry Date
County or district decides six years or twenty; entry starts both, and the lien too.
Find the Counties Before Recording
A transcript creates a lien only where it is recorded, and the six years are already running.
Test the Equity Before the Appraiser
38-41-206 wants value less prior liens above the exemption, sworn to.
Build the Revival Record as You Go
The motion asks what you did to collect. Document it while it is happening.
Step two is where Colorado punishes delay in a way the twenty-year headline hides. Because the lien expires six years after entry rather than six years after recording, a creditor who spends three years locating a debtor and then records has already spent half the lien. Doing the property research first, and recording once you know where to record, is not a refinement – it is the difference between a lien with years left and one with months. Where the debtor is a business rather than an individual, the entity question comes first: see collecting a judgment against a business.
Our Commitment
Three periods, expiring at three different moments, and a run of filings that each want something specific sworn to: a county, a parcel, a market value, a post-office address, an occupancy. Colorado asks the creditor to put its name to those. Assembling them is the job we take on – the right debtor rather than a namesake, an address rebuilt out of live records instead of forwarded from the case file, the counties where recorded property genuinely sits, what already encumbers it, and how a residence reads today. Every item is dated, attributed, and accompanied by a straight answer about how much weight it will bear. Whether the judgment survives, whether to move for revival, and everything that gets filed remain with your attorney. The searching behind it has been the same since 2004 – clerk and recorder indexes, court files, licensed data, run for a purpose permitted by law. We do not misrepresent who is asking, and we do not go after the contents of an account.
Colorado Judgment Questions
How long does a Colorado judgment last?
It depends which court entered it. C.R.S. 13-52-102(2)(a) allows execution within twenty years of entry, and subsection (2)(b)(I) cuts that to six years for judgments entered in a Colorado county court on or after July 1, 1981. In both cases the statute says that at the end of the period the judgment shall be considered as satisfied in full unless revived – so letting it lapse does not leave a dormant judgment, it leaves one treated as paid.
Is a Colorado judgment renewed or revived?
Revived, and through the court rather than over the counter. The Colorado Judicial Branch routes the process through JDF 113, a Motion for Revival of Judgment, JDF 114, a Notice to Show Cause for Revival, and JDF 125, an Order for Revival, with instructions in JDF 112. It is filed in the same court and under the same case number as the original judgment, and it must be filed before the judgment expires.
When does a Colorado judgment lien start and end?
It starts and ends on different events. Under 13-52-102(1) the judgment becomes a lien on the debtor’s non-exempt real estate in a county from the time a certified transcript of the judgment record is recorded there, and not before – but the lien expires six years after the entry of judgment. Recording late therefore shortens the lien rather than restarting it, which is why the twenty-year execution period is a poor guide to how much security a Colorado creditor actually holds.
Does reviving the judgment keep my Colorado lien alive?
Only if you record again. Section 13-52-102(1) continues the lien for six years from the entry of the revived judgment where, before the original six years expire, the judgment is revived and a transcript of the judgment record of the revived judgment, certified by the clerk of the court that entered it, is recorded in the same county in which the original transcript was recorded. Two acts are required, in two places.
When does a writ of execution start binding property in Colorado?
On delivery, not on issue. C.R.S. 13-52-111 provides that no writ of execution binds the personal property, goods or chattels of the person against whom it is issued until the writ is delivered to the sheriff or other officer for execution. The sheriff must endorse the hour, day and year of receipt on the writ and enter the receipt and time in a book at the sheriff’s office, and that book is a public record open to inspection – which is where competing creditors’ priority can be checked.
How long does a Colorado execution stay alive?
Ninety days. All executions are made returnable ninety days after date under 13-52-111, and the execution must be returned within ninety days from issue unless a sale is pending under levy. A writ that is issued and then sits unused is therefore both non-binding, because it has not been delivered, and on a short clock.
What do I have to file before going after a Colorado homestead?
Two affidavits, in two offices. Section 38-41-206 requires a creditor, before proceeding against homesteaded property, to file with the county clerk and recorder and with the sheriff or other levying officer an affidavit showing a description of the property and the claimant’s name, its fair market value, that the fair market value less prior liens or encumbrances exceeds the applicable homestead exemption, and that no previous execution on the same judgment has been levied on the property – together with the affidavit of a professional appraiser.
Does a Colorado homestead exemption apply if the debtor moved out?
Section 38-41-203 provides that homesteaded property is exempt only while occupied as a home by the owner or the owner’s family, so occupancy is a condition of the exemption rather than a formality. Whether a particular property is still occupied that way is a factual question the records often speak to, and whether the exemption holds on the facts is a legal question for your attorney. Section 38-41-204 separately gives the exemption to a surviving spouse or minor children, and provides that where there is neither the homestead is liable for the deceased’s debts.
Work the Colorado Clock That Actually Applies
Three periods run off one Colorado judgment and they expire at different times, and every one of them assumes somebody has identified a county, a parcel, or an address. Send what you hold on the debtor and the purpose the law lets you rely on. We find them, work the Colorado counties for recorded property, and hand your attorney material an affidavit can be sworn from – in most cases the first pages are available within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
Start Your Request →
