Small Claims Court: How to Sue Someone — and How to Actually Collect

Small claims court exists for the disputes that fall between two stools: too much money to write off, too little to justify an hourly rate most people cannot afford. Every state has one, the filing fee is usually the price of a dinner, and lawyers are optional in most of them.

It is also the court where the most people win and still never see a dollar, because the part that was never explained is what comes after the ruling. Here is the whole sequence, including the part nobody plans for.

First, the three checks

Before you file anything, answer three questions. Any one of them can end the case on its own.

1. Is the amount within the limit? Every state sets a ceiling — the largest claim its small claims court will hear. Across the country they run from a few thousand dollars at the low end to $25,000 at the top, and some states cap businesses lower than individuals. If your claim is over the line, you generally have two options: waive the excess and sue for the limit (you cannot come back for the rest later), or file in a higher court, where the rules get more expensive and more formal.

Confirm your state’s current number with the county court, not with a blog. Limits change, sometimes by statute, sometimes quietly by court rule.

2. Is the deadline still open? A claim is subject to a statute of limitations, and it runs from the date the debt became due or the harm happened — not from when you got around to chasing it. For written contracts the window is commonly measured in years; oral agreements typically get less. The periods vary by state and by the type of claim.

Miss it and the case is over regardless of how right you are, because the deadline is what lawyers call an affirmative defense: the other side has to raise it, and if they do, the court applies it.

3. Can this person actually pay? This is the check people skip, and it is the one that decides whether the whole exercise has a point. Ask what you know: do they have a job with wages that can be garnished, a bank account, a car, property? Do they change addresses every six months? Someone with steady employment and a bank account is collectible. Someone with neither is a judgment you will spend years not collecting.

If the answer is “they have nothing,” the honest calculation is whether the filing fee and your time are worth the principle. Sometimes the answer is yes — a judgment follows them for years and can be renewed. Often the answer is that you have just learned why they do not repay people.

Start with a demand letter

You do not have to send one. But it costs a stamp, judges expect to see that you tried, and a meaningful share of disputes end at this step without a courthouse.

Send it by certified mail with return receipt. State what happened, the exact amount you are owed and how you calculated it, and a deadline to pay — ten to fifteen business days is normal — and say plainly that you will file in small claims if they do not. Keep a copy and the receipt: both become evidence.

Keep the tone flat. Threats in a letter that later gets read out in court help the other side, not you.

Filing, and where

You generally file where the defendant lives or does business, not where you live. If the dispute is about property — an unreturned deposit, damage to a rental — you can usually file where the property sits. Filing in the wrong court gets the case dismissed or transferred and costs you weeks.

If you are suing a business, get its exact legal name, not the name on the sign. Your state’s business registry is free and takes two minutes. Suing the wrong entity is one of the most common reasons a winnable case is dismissed.

The paperwork is short: who you are, who they are, how much, and a few sentences on what happened. Filing fees scale with the amount claimed and vary by state and county, and most states waive or defer them for low-income filers — ask the clerk for the form. If you win, the fee and service costs are usually added to the judgment, so the cost is a loan, not a loss, in the cases you win.

Service: the step that stops cases

Filing tells the court. Service tells the defendant, and it has strict rules. In most states you cannot simply hand the papers over yourself. The usual routes are certified mail through the clerk (cheapest where offered), the sheriff or constable (a fee, and slow but reliable), or a private process server (fastest, and persistent about it). After service, proof of it is filed with the court, and nothing moves until that happens.

This is also where an evasive defendant can stall: if they cannot be found and served, your case sits.

At the hearing

Most small claims hearings are short and informal. Judges hear a room full of cases in an afternoon. Three things matter:

• Bring it in order. Contracts, receipts, messages, photos, bank records — printed, in date order, and in triplicate (you, them, the judge).
• Lead with the number, then the story. Two or three minutes: what was agreed, what happened, what you are owed. Facts and dates. The judge will ask questions.
• Show up. If you do not, the case is dismissed. If they do not, you can ask for a default judgment, which is the same as any other judgment — and just as hard to collect.

Some states allow an appeal of a small claims result, usually a fresh hearing in a higher court. That is a reason to take the first hearing seriously rather than treating it as a warm-up.

The half nobody plans for: collecting

This is the part that matters, so read it before you file.

A judgment is a court’s finding that you are owed money. It is not a payment, and no marshal appears to hand you cash. Enforcement is your job, and it is a second process:

• Wage garnishment — a court order directing the employer to withhold part of the paycheck. Federal law caps general-creditor garnishment at 25% of disposable earnings, or the amount by which weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is less; many states set a stricter ceiling, and child support and tax debts follow different rules entirely.
• Bank levy — a one-time seizure of whatever is in the account when the order is served. Effective against someone with savings, useless against someone living paycheck to paycheck.
• A lien — attaches to real property and gets paid when it is sold or refinanced. Slow, but it does not go away.
• A debtor’s examination — a court hearing where the debtor must answer questions about income and assets under oath. This is how you find the account to levy in the first place.

Two timing facts belong in your plan. Judgments have a lifespan — commonly around a decade in many states, but the period varies and many states require you to renew before it lapses. And judgment interest accrues at a rate set by state law, so a judgment that sits is not standing still.

If the debtor files for bankruptcy in the meantime, an unsecured judgment is typically discharged, and the whole collection effort ends. That is a real risk, not a remote one, in cases where the debtor has multiple creditors — which is often exactly the situation you are suing into.

The honest summary

Small claims court works. It is cheap, fast by court standards, and designed to be used without a lawyer. But it is two projects, not one: proving the debt, then extracting it. Do the three checks first, put your evidence in a folder, and go in knowing that the second project is the harder one.

If the debt came from a personal loan, the paperwork question starts earlier — what to write down before you lend is covered in Lending Money to a Friend: What to Put in Writing Before You Do. And if the money is owed to you by way of a collector rather than a court — or the calls are coming the other direction — see What Debt Collectors Can and Cannot Do.