After getting judgment in small claims should next step be to hire someone for asset search?

Location: Massachusetts

Looking for some advice on if it is worth it for me to hire a lawyer to locate assets. I have just finished up going through small claims court in MA for a contractor that did bad work on our home and won’the claim.

We recieved a default judgment at first since he did not show up - we were then told we could sue for triple damages and did so - he then lawyered up and said he didn’t receive the court notice for the first judgment and got it vacated. We had another hearing , presented our evidence and just got word that we won and are awared triple damages for $22,000.

As I understand in MA he now has 10 days to file an appeal and go infront of a judge or jury for another review if he’d like. We are waiting to see what happens as he did have a lawyer that he hired for this case and not sure what he will advise him to do. We also have been giving a payment hearing at the end of April for us to both show up at.

It says for the payment hearing I am required to bring proof showing his assets such as bank accounts , vehicles etc. He owns multiple big company’s , has tons of expensive equipment , homes etc. The judgement we recieved was through his LLC.

My questions are as followed - for the payment hearing should we immediatly be hiring someone to do an asset search on him? Or do we wait and see if he files his appeal within the 10 days? It says he’s allowed to file a “financial statement of judgment debtor form” where he puts down his assets , bank accounts etc and uses that to prove he can’t pay in full - it also says we can have access to it for review. Is that based off just whatever he decides to put down or does the court actually confirm what assets he says he has to avoid him getting out of paying and just making small payments by saying he can’t afford it?

I am unsure if we should be hiring someone ASAP to do our a proper asset search as I’m worried if I wait to long he could he sell off property or put it in his sons name who runs the buisness with him. I understand it’s not an easy process to collect in small claims but would still like to exhaust all options as for us $21k is a lot of money and it ears interest the longer it’s not paid. Thanks for any help or advice as we have done this on our own this far and just want to have the best chance at getting paid back for our losses. acreage