Page 140 - Judgment Enforcement Course

Judgment Enforcement – The Step-by-Step Course

Knowing what kind of business it is?

When your JD is a business, or has a business, the first thing you need to do is to
discover exactly what kind of business it is. It may be 1) a personal

business or 2) a corporation or LLC. It is important for you to know Two Types
which kind of business it is, because different rules apply to each. of
Businesses
Two types of business:
✓ Personal Business (dba or ‘trade name’ owned by the person)
✓ Corporation or LLC

Here’s how to find out which one it is.

Let’s say your debtor’s business is “Fast Carpet Cleaning.” Though it may

be a corporation, it probably won’t have the corporate signifiers—Inc., Corp.,
or LLC—on the business sign outside the store. To check and see if it’s a
corporation of some sort, go to the Secretary of State website for your state
and search under “Business Search>”

If you can’t find “Fast Carpet Cleaning” on your Secretary of State web
site, don’t automatically assume it’s not a corporation. It may still be a
corporation but registered in another state. Nevada and Delaware corporations
are fashionable these days, and maybe (and illegally) a person may start a DE
corporation, for example, and not register it in the state where it’s operating.

So use your professional databases to look in other states for corporations
called “Fast Carpet Cleaning”. Try different variations. For example, try

“Faster Carpet Cleaning” or any other possible variant. You may also want to
put the name in Google and see what shows up there. Remember, all you’re
trying to do is determine whether it is a personal business or a
corporation/LLC.

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