§ 685.090.Costs Added to and Part of Judgment

Costs a creditor claims under §§ 685.070 or 685.080 don't automatically become part of the judgment the moment they're incurred -- this section marks the trigger points. Subdivision (a) lists three: the filing of a court order allowing the costs; the expiration of the time to move to tax a filed memorandum of costs, when no such motion was made; or, for service costs, the automatic mechanism § 685.095 provides. Subdivision (b) folds those added costs into the principal amount of the judgment remaining unsatisfied, so they carry the same enforceability and interest treatment as the rest of the judgment.

Subdivisions (c) and (d) handle the case where a writ or earnings withholding order is already out in the field when costs get added. If the levying officer receives a certified copy of the court's cost order, or a clerk's certificate that the memorandum costs were added without a motion to tax, before the writ or order is returned, the officer adds those costs to the amount being collected under it. But the officer folds those costs into the distribution paid to the creditor only if that certified order or certificate arrives before the distribution is made -- arriving after the money is already out the door does the creditor no good.