Quote Quoting adjusterjack
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The problem with suing in Florida is that you have to serve him in Georgia.
No, the problem here is that the OP cannot sue the debtor in Florida at all. He will have to sue in Georgia instead. The the reason is that Florida’s long-arm statute does not give Florida courts jurisdiction over a nonresident in this situation. This is a breach of contract case. The Florida long-arm statute allows a suit against a nonresident of the state in only three contract situations:

(1) The defendant contracted to insure a person, property, or risk located within this state at the time of contracting.
(2) The defendant breached a contract in Florida by failing to perform acts required by the contract to be performed in Florida.
(3) The defendant entered into a contract that complies with Fla. Stat. § 685.102.

See Fla. Stat. § 48.193. Obviously, this is not a contract of insurance, so the OP doesn’t get jurisdiction under (1). The contracts in (2) are those in which the defendant was required to make his performance on the contract in Florida, e.g. a requirement to provide a personal service in Florida, like say building a fence on property located in Florida. This is a simple money debt contract. There is nothing in the contract that requires the contract to be performed in Florida. So, the OP doesn’t get jurisdiction over the nonresident defendant under (2). Finally, Fla. Stat. § 685.102 addresses contracts over $250,000 in which the parties have agreed that any dispute over the contract may be litigated in Florida. This contract is presumably well under $250,000 or the OP would not have asked about small claims court and it’s also a pretty good bet that they didn't specify in the contract that any dispute would be subject to suit in Florida. So the OP does not get jurisdiction here over the nonresident by (3).

Thus, the OP must sue in Georgia. And since travel costs to Georgia to attend the small claims trial are not recoverable in the lawsuit, there is the possibility that it might cost the OP more to sue the debtor in Florida than he would get in any judgment against the debtor. Of course, it matters just how much is owed on the debt and what costs the OP would incur to litigate it in Georgia. He should have started the lawsuit way back when payments started to get missed and the debtor was still in Florida. Creditors who delay collecting their debts tend to get burned.


Edited to add:
By they way, the statute of limitations to sue on a written contract in Georgia is 6 years and on an oral contract 4 years. In general, the rule in Georgia is that the time starts to run on the first day when the action could have been brought. I see nothing that suggests that making periodic payments later would reset or extend the limitation period. So if this was an oral contract the terms of the contract and what payments were made and what payments were missed may matter greatly here since the OP mentioned the debtor's failure to pay has been on going for four years. It may be that it is now too late to sue for at least some of is owed. If it was an oral contract, the OP had better not sit on it any longer and ought to sue if he has any argument the SOL is still open for at least some of what is owed. This is another reason why delaying in collecting what is owed to you can come back to bite you.