Massachusetts Judgment Collection
Massachusetts is the state where the judgment itself does nothing. There is no lien on docketing, so everything runs through an execution an officer has to physically levy – with a forty-day deposit deadline most summaries get wrong and a six-year completion clock almost none of them mention. This page walks that sequence and the facts each step needs.
The Short Version
Entering a Massachusetts money judgment creates no interest in any property at all. Land is reached only by a levy: an officer takes it on execution and deposits a copy at the registry of deeds, and until that deposit a good-faith purchaser beats the creditor. Where the land was attached earlier in the case the deposit has forty days – counted from the date on the execution, not from issuance, and seventy days in the Nantucket cross-county case. A levy that is never completed is void as to that registry district after six years unless it is brought forward. For a debtor with income rather than land, Chapter 224 supplementary process is the route, and the creditor carries the burden of proof at the hearing.
Watch: Massachusetts Judgment Collection: Levy, Not Lien
Two minutes on why a Massachusetts execution behaves differently from a judgment lien, before the statutory detail below.
Watch Overview
A Massachusetts Judgment Is Not a Lien
Start here, because almost every other state works the other way and the assumption travels badly.
In most states, docketing a money judgment is itself the encumbrance: the clerk enters it, and from that moment the judgment attaches to the debtor's land in that county. Massachusetts does not do this. Entering a Massachusetts judgment creates a debt that is enforceable and a document that is final, and it creates no interest in any property whatsoever. Nothing is encumbered, nothing is clouded, and a debtor can sell a house the week after judgment without the creditor having any claim on the proceeds.
What changes that is a levy – an act performed by an officer with a writ in hand, not a filing performed by a creditor with a form. Under G.L. c. 236, Section 4, when land is taken on execution the officer "shall forthwith deposit in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the land lies a copy of the execution with a memorandum thereon that the execution is in his hands for the purpose of taking the land of the defendant", and the section then says the consequence in terms: no such taking shall be valid against a purchaser in good faith, for value and without notice, before such copy is deposited.
That sentence is why the sequence matters more here than the paperwork. The officer's taking and the registry deposit are two halves of one act, and until the second half happens a bona fide purchaser beats the creditor outright. Every practical consequence on the rest of this page follows from the fact that a Massachusetts creditor is holding an instrument to be executed rather than a lien to be renewed. How other states handle the same step is set out on our judgment lien guide by state; Massachusetts is the outlier in that table, not a variation on it.
The Execution and Its Return Days
The instrument that does the work has its own life, and G.L. c. 235, Section 23 gives three different answers depending on what the judgment is.
| Kind of judgment | Return day of the original execution | Runs from |
|---|---|---|
| The general case – an ordinary money judgment | 20 years | "the date of the judgment" |
| Against executors, administrators, trustees and other fiduciary officers in their representative capacity, or against sheriffs under c. 37, Section 10, or on special judgments under c. 235, Section 24 | 60 days | the date of the execution |
| For possession of premises rented or leased for dwelling purposes, in a c. 239 action | May not issue later than 3 months after judgment, and is returnable within 3 months of issuance; any period the execution was stayed by court order or by a filed agreement is excluded | the date of judgment / the date of issuance |
Behind all three sits a separate section with a separate trigger. G.L. c. 260, Section 20 says a judgment of a court of record "shall be presumed to be paid and satisfied at the expiration of twenty years after it was rendered". Rendition and the date of the judgment are usually the same day and are not the same concept, and the two twenty-year figures are doing different jobs: one closes the execution, the other raises a presumption against the debt. G.L. c. 235, Section 19 sits between them – if a judgment remains unsatisfied after the time for taking out execution has expired, the creditor may obtain a new execution by motion in the court that rendered it, or may bring a civil action on the judgment, in either case subject to the twenty-year presumption. So Massachusetts has no dormancy and no renewal filing; it has a motion and a presumption. The state-by-state durations sit on our how long a judgment stays good index.
Forty Days, Not Thirty
The most commonly misstated deadline in Massachusetts collection, and the statute is explicit about both the number and what it counts from.
Where the land was not attached earlier in the case, c. 236, Section 4 requires the deposit "forthwith" – no fixed number, but no slack either, since the taking is worthless against a good-faith purchaser until it lands.
Where the land was attached on mesne process, the section sets a hard number and a hard consequence: the copy of the execution "shall be deposited by the officer in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the land lies, within forty days after the date which appears on the execution issued upon the judgment in the action, and the attachment shall become void forty days after said date unless the copy is so deposited." A creditor who obtained a real estate attachment early in the case, and who is relying on that attachment for priority, loses it on day forty-one.
It is worth being blunt about a discrepancy here, because it is the kind that costs money. A well-regarded Massachusetts firm guide currently ranking for this query states the deadline as thirty days from issuance. The enacted text says forty days from the date which appears on the execution – a different number counted from a different event. There is also a variant most summaries omit entirely: where land was attached in Nantucket county and judgment was rendered elsewhere, or judgment was rendered in Nantucket and the land attached elsewhere, the figure is seventy days, and the attachment becomes void seventy days after that date. Read the section rather than a summary of it – it is published in full by the Legislature.
The practical shape of this is that the forty days are spent finding things, not filing them. An officer cannot take land the creditor has not identified, and a Massachusetts debtor's holdings are recorded by registry district rather than in one statewide index. Our guide to finding a judgment debtor's real estate covers how that search is structured.
The Six-Year Clock Nobody Mentions
A levy that is started and not finished expires – and this section appears on no page-one result for any of the queries this page targets.
G.L. c. 236, Section 49A is headed "Certain levies made void by operation of law", and it does what the heading says. If a levy on execution has not been completed – by set-off under Sections 6 to 23, or by sale under Sections 26 to 30 – within six years from the date on which notice of the execution was deposited in a registry of deeds under Section 4, the levy, even if otherwise valid, is void as to any land within that registry district.
Note what the six years run from. Not the judgment, not the execution, not the taking: the deposit. It is the fourth distinct triggering event in this statutory scheme, and it is the only one that starts inside the registry rather than at the court.
There is an escape, and it is a filing rather than a fresh levy: the levy survives if, within the same six-year period, it is brought forward in that registry of deeds in the manner provided by G.L. c. 223, Section 114A for bringing forward attachments of real estate. And Section 49A adds a sentence that matters for planning – where a levy does become void under it, "the creditor may resort to any other legal remedy for the satisfaction of his judgment." The levy dies; the judgment does not. What has been lost is the priority and the work, not the debt, and with a twenty-year execution return day there is usually time to start again. The section is short enough to read in full, which is the best argument for reading it: a creditor who has been carrying a levied Massachusetts file for five years is closer to a deadline than anyone has told them.
Supplementary Process: Massachusetts’s Answer for Income
For the debtor with a paycheck rather than a parcel, G.L. c. 224 runs a court-supervised payment system – and it is drafted with the creditor carrying the burden.
A judgment creditor files an application in the District Court or Boston Municipal Court division where the debtor lives, works or has a usual place of business. Under c. 224, Section 14 a summons issues requiring the debtor to appear and "submit to an examination relative to his or its property and ability to pay". Service is by an officer qualified to serve civil process, at least seven days before the return day, and for an individual it must be in hand or by leaving a copy at the last and usual place of abode. For a corporation the section names who may be served – president, treasurer, clerk, resident agent, cashier, secretary or other officer in charge – and provides that if no such officer is found in the county, any member of the corporation will do. Failure of the debtor to appear without reasonable excuse is what puts a capias on the table.
Section 16 is where the unusual drafting is. Three separate features cut against the creditor. First, the burden: the court may order production or payment only "if after a full hearing at which the creditor shall have the burden of proof" it finds the debtor has non-exempt property. The creditor has to prove the assets exist, and no amount of advocacy at the hearing substitutes for having found them beforehand. Second, the ceiling: an individual debtor may be ordered to pay only to the extent income exceeds the greater of the exemption in c. 246, Section 28 or the federal restriction in 15 U.S.C. 1671 to 1677 – the statute takes the more generous of the two, and in Massachusetts that is almost always the state figure. Third, the mandatory exit: where the debtor is a handicapped person or is sixty years of age or older and the court finds no non-exempt property or income, the proceedings shall be dismissed without prejudice – not may, shall.
The exemption those payment orders are measured against is the same one that governs trustee process: under c. 246, Section 28, wages are reserved in the trustee's hands to the greater of 85 per cent of the debtor's gross wages or fifty times the greater of the federal or the Massachusetts hourly minimum wage for each week. The arithmetic, and what the figure works out to at the current Massachusetts rate, is on our Massachusetts wage garnishment laws page; what matters here is that Section 16 imports it wholesale into the payment order.
The same section also protects retirement money in the trustee's hands – ERISA plans, 401(a) plans, 403(b) annuities, Keogh plans, SEPs and IRAs are all exempt – with one anti-stuffing rule worth knowing. The protection does not extend to sums deposited into an individually maintained plan during the five-year period preceding the debtor's bankruptcy or the entry of judgment, to the extent those deposits exceed seven per cent of the debtor's total income for that period. A debtor who saw a judgment coming and moved cash into an IRA is the case that rule was written for. The full picture of what a Massachusetts debtor keeps is on our Massachusetts asset exemptions page. A general walkthrough of how these examinations are run is in our debtor examination guide.
The Judgment Inherits Its Own Interest Rate
Massachusetts does not set a single postjudgment rate. It carries the prejudgment rate forward.
G.L. c. 235, Section 8 is unusually direct: "Every judgment for the payment of money shall bear interest from the day of its entry at the same rate per annum as provided for prejudgment interest in such award, report, verdict or finding." The section also requires the execution itself to specify the day upon which judgment was entered, and to require collection with interest from that day – so the instrument carries its own start date on its face.
What that rate actually is therefore depends on what the case was. Under c. 231, Section 6C, in all actions based on contractual obligations interest is added at the contract rate if one is established, and otherwise at twelve per cent per annum, running from the date of the breach or demand – or, where that date is not established, from the commencement of the action. Twelve per cent compounds into real money on a judgment carried for a decade, and it is one of the reasons a stale Massachusetts file is often worth more than the creditor assumes.
The consequence for anyone picking up an old file cold is that the balance cannot be read off the judgment. The correct figure needs the entry date (which is printed on the execution), the prejudgment rate applied in the underlying case, and the payment history. Two of those three live in the court file rather than in the creditor's file, which is why an accurate demand on an inherited Massachusetts judgment starts at the docket.
Where a Massachusetts File Goes Quiet
Every one of these is a missing fact rather than a missing remedy.
Nothing was ever levied on
The single most common state of a stalled Massachusetts file: a final judgment, an execution issued, and no officer ever sent anywhere, because nobody identified land or goods to take. The judgment is not a lien and never becomes one on its own.
The forty days ran on an attachment nobody was watching
Where a real estate attachment was obtained early in the case, c. 236 Section 4 voids it forty days after the date on the execution unless the copy is deposited. Files that pass between firms at judgment are where this is lost.
A levy started five years ago and stopped
c. 236 Section 49A voids an incomplete levy six years after the registry deposit unless it is brought forward. A part-finished levy looks like progress on a file review and is a deadline.
Supplementary process without proof
c. 224 Section 16 puts the burden of proof on the creditor at the hearing. Turning up with a summons and no documented assets produces a dismissal, and against a debtor who is sixty or older with no non-exempt income the dismissal is mandatory.
Land in the wrong registry district
Massachusetts records by county and district, and the deposit under Section 4 only works in the district where the land lies. A debtor with property on the Cape and a home west of Worcester is two deposits.
The debtor left the Commonwealth
A Massachusetts execution stops at the state line, and the judgment has to be taken to wherever the debtor now is. That begins with establishing where – see judgment debtor location.
How We Work a Massachusetts Matter
We supply facts. Counsel decides the remedy and an officer performs the levy.
You send the execution, or the judgment and the entry date
The execution is the more useful document because c. 235 Section 8 makes it carry the entry date on its face, and c. 236 Section 4 counts forty days from the date appearing on it. If the execution has issued, its date is the clock we work back from.
We confirm identity before anything is recorded against anyone
We resolve the debtor to a verified current address and a documented history first. A copy of an execution deposited against the wrong person’s parcel is a title problem, not a collection step.
We map holdings by registry district
Real property is searched by county and registry district, since the deposit under Section 4 only reaches land in the district where it lands. We report every parcel we can document, where it sits, and which registry governs it.
We establish income and employment for the c. 224 route
Where there is no land, supplementary process is the route and the creditor carries the burden of proof. We research current employment and financial relationships from lawful sources so that hearing is not a fishing trip.
You get a first read within 24 hours
On most Massachusetts files we can say within 24 hours whether the debtor is locatable and whether there is anything recorded worth levying on. That answer comes first because it decides whether the rest of the spend is justified.
You get a documented file, not an opinion
Addresses, employment, business interests and recorded property with the basis for each. We do not advise which Massachusetts remedy to use, and we do not serve, levy or seize anything.
What We Do, and What the Officer Does
In Massachusetts the statute assigns the physical acts to somebody specific, and it is not us.
We are a public-records and skip-tracing research firm. Nobody on this team holds a Massachusetts private investigator's licence and nothing on this page should be read as claiming investigative licensure; we do not call ourselves investigators. G.L. c. 236, Section 4 gives the taking and the registry deposit to the officer – a sheriff, deputy or constable – and c. 224, Section 14 gives service of the supplementary process summons to an officer qualified to serve civil process. The application, the motion and the hearing belong to the creditor and counsel. What we supply is the factual layer all three depend on.
Nothing gets researched here until somebody has written down a lawful purpose for it, and satisfying a judgment the Commonwealth's own courts have entered is about as plain a one as exists. The material we work from is public record and lawfully available data. Nobody here telephones a registry, an employer or a bank pretending to be someone else, and we do not misrepresent who is asking or why. If a Massachusetts file would only hold together as long as the research behind it stayed hidden, it is not a file we want.
One more boundary, and it is statutory rather than ours. A locate report is not a consumer report; this firm does not operate as a consumer reporting agency; and no part of what we deliver has been assembled to support an eligibility decision. Credit, insurance, hiring and housing decisions are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and have to be made on a regulated bureau's product, not on ours.
We also decline locate work where the point is reaching a person rather than collecting from one. If the person named is a victim of abuse, has fled a violent household, or is protected by a restraining order or a no-contact order, we will not take the file and we will say so – finding them could harm them, and an entered judgment does not override the fact that somebody does not want to be found. Massachusetts's own collection statute shows the legislature thinking in the same direction: c. 224, Section 16 does not merely permit but requires dismissal without prejudice where the debtor is handicapped or sixty or older and has nothing non-exempt. Some debtors are not collectible, and the statute says so before the creditor does.
Everything here is general information about Massachusetts law and is not legal advice. Whether a remedy is available on a particular judgment is a question for a Massachusetts attorney with your file in front of them.
Who We Help Collect
Creditors and counsel holding a Massachusetts execution that has nowhere to go yet.
Judgment creditors and assignees
Holders of a Massachusetts judgment or execution that has stalled, including purchased and inherited files where the entry date and the prejudgment rate both need re-establishing before a balance can be stated.
Creditors'-rights and collection counsel
Firms that need documented parcels by registry district, or documented income, before instructing an officer or carrying the burden of proof at a c. 224 hearing.
Commercial creditors and suppliers
Trade creditors chasing a Massachusetts business debtor, its successor entities, and principals with property recorded in other counties.
Landlords holding damages judgments
Property owners with an entered money judgment against a former tenant who has moved on. We locate the person and research assets; we do not screen rental applicants or assess anyone's suitability for a tenancy.
Personal injury and subrogation counsel
Where a judgment is entered and the question is whether the defendant has any reachable, non-exempt asset before an officer is paid to look.
Out-of-state creditors with a Massachusetts debtor
Creditors deciding whether domestication into Massachusetts is worth it, which turns on whether there is anything here to levy on.
If you are earlier than that and simply need to establish whether a judgment exists, our guide to checking whether someone has a civil judgment against them is the better starting point. If the debtor has already left the Commonwealth, start with skip tracing.
Our Commitment
If we cannot document a current Massachusetts address, an employer, or a parcel in a named registry district, we say so plainly instead of padding a report. In a state where the creditor carries the burden of proof at the c. 224 hearing, a short honest file is worth more to you than a long speculative one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Massachusetts judgment automatically become a lien on the debtor’s house?
No. Entering a Massachusetts money judgment creates no interest in any property. Land is reached by a levy: under G.L. c. 236, Section 4 an officer takes the land on execution and deposits a copy of the execution at the registry of deeds, and no taking is valid against a good-faith purchaser for value without notice before that copy is deposited. This is general information, not legal advice.
How long is a Massachusetts judgment good for?
Two twenty-year figures do different jobs. G.L. c. 235, Section 23 makes the original execution returnable within twenty years after the date of the judgment in the general case. G.L. c. 260, Section 20 separately presumes a judgment paid and satisfied twenty years after it was rendered. Under c. 235, Section 19 an unsatisfied judgment can support a new execution by motion, or a civil action on the judgment, subject to that presumption.
How many days do I have to record the execution to keep an attachment alive?
Forty, and they run from the date appearing on the execution rather than from issuance. G.L. c. 236, Section 4 provides that where land was attached on mesne process the copy must be deposited within forty days after that date, and the attachment becomes void forty days after it if the copy is not deposited. A seventy-day figure applies to the Nantucket cross-county case.
Can a Massachusetts levy expire even after it has been recorded?
Yes. G.L. c. 236, Section 49A makes a levy void as to land in a registry district if it is not completed by set-off or by sale within six years from the date notice of the execution was deposited under Section 4, unless it is brought forward in that registry in the manner provided by c. 223, Section 114A. The section adds that the creditor may then resort to any other legal remedy for satisfaction of the judgment.
What is supplementary process in Massachusetts?
It is the court-supervised route for a debtor with income rather than property. Under G.L. c. 224, Section 14 a summons requires the debtor to appear and submit to examination as to property and ability to pay, served at least seven days before the return day. Section 16 then lets the court order production of property or payment in full or by instalments.
Who carries the burden of proof at a supplementary process hearing?
The creditor. G.L. c. 224, Section 16 permits a production or payment order only after a full hearing at which the creditor shall have the burden of proof that the debtor has non-exempt property. The same section requires dismissal without prejudice where the debtor is a handicapped person or is sixty years of age or older and has no non-exempt property or income.
What rate of interest does a Massachusetts judgment earn?
Whatever rate applied before judgment. G.L. c. 235, Section 8 makes every money judgment bear interest from the day of its entry at the same rate per annum as the prejudgment interest on the underlying award, and requires the execution to specify that entry date. In contract actions, c. 231, Section 6C sets that rate at the contract rate if established and otherwise at twelve per cent per annum.
What do you supply on a Massachusetts file, and how fast?
Verified identity and current address, employment, business interests and recorded real property mapped by county and registry district, with the documentary basis for each. On most files a first read comes back within 24 hours. We do not levy, serve or seize – a sheriff, deputy or constable does that – and we do not advise on which remedy to use.
Find Something Worth Levying On
Send us the execution or the judgment with its entry date and what you know about the debtor. We come back with verified identity, current address, employment and a registry-district property picture – the facts an officer and a c. 224 hearing both need before anything is spent.
Start Your Request →
