A successful lawsuit for money owed leads to a judgment but it does not, inevitably, lead to payment of the judgment. If the defendant does not voluntarily pay the judgment, the plaintiff must commence enforcement proceedings against the defendant. This is like a separate lawsuit after judgment that the plaintiff must get involved in and it is sometimes a difficult and frustrating process for the plaintiff.
If the judgment is in the Small Claims Court, one of the ways the plaintiff may start the enforcement proceedings is by requesting that the Clerk of the Court issue a Notice of Examination. The plaintiff may simply mail this Notice to the defendant. The examination is commonly called a judgment-debtor examination. Because there is now a judgment against the defendant, the defendant is called the debtor and the plaintiff is called the creditor. Once the debtor receives the Notice of Examination, he is required, by law, to complete a Financial Information Form and send it to the creditor. This form has sections on monthly income and monthly expenses to be completed by the debtor, as well as the requirement that the debtor list ongoing debts, such as credit cards, and list and value assets owned by the debtor. At the judgment-debtor examination, the creditor has a wide range of enquiry. Areas identified in the court rules include the reason for non-payment, debts owed to the debtor, and whether the debtor has disposed of any property either before or after the judgment was made.
Sometimes, the debtor will not show up for the examination. The only remedy that the creditor has at this point is to obtain a court order requiring the debtor to attend an examination. This time the creditor must arrange to have the debtor personally delivered the court order and a new Notice of Examination. If the debtor does not show up at the second examination, the creditor may then ask the court for a contempt hearing because the debtor has refused to comply with the court order. The Clerk of the Small Claims Court will provide the creditor with a Notice of Contempt Hearing and the creditor must again have the debtor personally delivered the Notice. The contempt hearing is heard before a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, not in the Small Claims Court.
The Superior Court has a similar collection process for judgments in that court. If the debtor is now living in another province, that province will have legislation to enforce the Ontario judgment in that province. The Ontario judgment will have to be registered in the superior court of the other province before the creditor may start enforcement proceedings in that province.