Hiring a Collection Agency for a BC Small Claims Judgment

You have a court judgment in BC but the debtor is not paying, and you are wondering whether a collection agency can do the heavy lifting. It is a reasonable question — enforcement is time-consuming, and the idea of handing the file to someone else is appealing. But the reality of how collection agencies work with small claims judgments is more nuanced than most creditors expect.

How Collection Agencies Handle Court Judgments

A collection agency in BC is licensed under the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (BPCPA) and regulated by Consumer Protection BC. When you assign a judgment to an agency, they typically contact the debtor by phone and mail to demand payment. Their primary tool is persistent communication — calls, letters, and the implicit threat that non-payment affects the debtor's credit.

Most collection agencies operate on a contingency fee basis, taking 25% to 50% of whatever they recover. They collect nothing, you pay nothing — but if they do recover, a significant share of your judgment goes to the agency.

Some agencies will also help initiate court enforcement steps (garnishment applications, payment hearing filings), but many smaller agencies focus purely on skip tracing and demand communications. If actual court filings are needed, they may refer you back to self-enforcement or to a lawyer.

When a Collection Agency Makes Sense

A collection agency is most useful when:

• The judgment is large enough that a 25-50% fee still leaves you with a meaningful recovery. On a $1,500 CRT order, paying 40% to an agency leaves you with $900 — after your own enforcement costs are already sunk.
• You have no information about the debtor's assets. Agencies have access to skip-tracing tools and credit bureau data that individual creditors cannot easily obtain. They may locate bank accounts or employers that you could not find on your own.
• You do not have time to manage enforcement yourself. Filing garnishing orders, scheduling payment hearings, and tracking service deadlines is administrative work. If your time is worth more than the agency's cut, outsourcing can be rational.

When Self-Enforcement Is Better

For many small claims judgments — particularly those under $5,000 from the CRT — self-enforcement is often the more practical path:

• You already know where the debtor banks or works. If you have the debtor's bank branch or employer address, a garnishing order is a direct, registry-level filing. The court registry fee is modest, and you recover the full amount (minus filing and service costs, which are added to the judgment debt).
• The debtor owns real property in BC. Registering the judgment against their land at the LTSA costs a filing fee and secures your position — you get paid when the property sells. No agency needed.
• The amount is small. Many collection agencies reject single-judgment files under $2,000 to $3,000 because the commission does not justify their operational costs. You may find that agencies simply will not take your case.

Regulatory Rules That Apply

BC's BPCPA imposes strict rules on collection agency conduct:

• Agencies cannot contact a debtor's employer except to verify employment (no pressure calls to a boss).
• Debtors cannot be contacted by telephone or in person on statutory holidays, on Sundays before 1:00 p.m. or after 5:00 p.m., or on other days before 7:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. local time.
• Agencies cannot misrepresent the legal consequences of non-payment or threaten actions they cannot legally take.
• If a debtor makes a formal written request for communication only in writing, the collector must stop telephone contact.

If you hire an agency to collect on your behalf, you remain the judgment creditor. An agency that is not a court-appointed bailiff cannot execute an Order for Seizure and Sale. Ask who will prepare any other court filings and in whose name.

The Middle Path: Enforce Yourself, Then Reassess

Many creditors get the best result by handling the straightforward enforcement steps themselves — filing the judgment, sending a demand letter, scheduling a payment hearing or filing a garnishing order — and only turning to a collection agency if those steps reveal that the debtor is genuinely difficult to locate or has no reachable assets.

The BC Order Enforcement Guide walks through every enforcement tool in the order you should use them, with the forms, fees, and service requirements for each. If the debtor has assets you can reach, you keep 100% of what you recover.

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