Litigators are commonly presented with the same scenario: Your client (or referral) has obtained a judgment in another state, and subsequently discovers that the judgment debtor may have assets in New York and wants to enforce its judgment against those New York assets. In order to attach against the judgment debtor’s New York assets, you will need to first domesticate that judgment in New York.
Under New York state law, the procedure for domestication of a sister-state judgment is very straightforward where the underlying judgment was entered after an appearance by the defendant. However, the process becomes more nuanced when the foreign judgment was entered on default, which is often the case. This article provides an overview of the steps needed to domesticate sister-state judgments in New York depending on how the sister-state judgment was obtained, with a particular focus on domestication of sister-state judgments entered on default.
