§ 2033.720.Interrogatories for use by victim who has not received complete

This section extends the form-interrogatories program to a specific and often overlooked situation: a defendant who owes a victim restitution under Penal Code Section 1202.4 but has not paid it in full. The Judicial Council must develop a set of official form interrogatories built to help that victim track down what the defendant owns and earns, since a restitution order is often meaningless on paper without some way to trace assets to collect against.

The section gives a victim a standing right to use these forms once each calendar year, whether or not the victim has filed or is maintaining a civil action to enforce the order. The defendant who receives them cannot answer with stale information; the responses have to reflect current assets, income, and liabilities, including any interest the defendant claims in property that has not yet vested. Repeating the process annually lets a victim keep pace with a defendant's changing financial picture over however many years it takes to collect on an unpaid order.