Frozen Bank Accounts, Bank Levies, and Assignment Orders
If a creditor gets a money judgment against you, it can use special collection procedures to get paid, such as taking money from your bank account (called freezing your bank account or levying funds from your account) or grabbing your tax refund, accounts receivable, or other source of money before you get it (creditors do this with an assignment order). Learn more about these collection procedures, when the creditor can and cannot use them, and what you can do to prevent your money from being taken.
Judgment creditors can freeze your bank account, and then collect on unpaid debts from those funds.
Under a new federal regulation, social security funds that are directly deposited into your account get special protection from garnishment by judgment creditors.
Judgment creditors can use a property levy in order to take certain items of your personal property.
Wage garnishments and bank levies are different -- learn about them and which creditors are more likely to use each type of collection action.
Creditors can garnish jointly owned savings and checking accounts. Learn about your rights.
Find out if a creditor can garnish funds from a joint bank account if it has a judgment against your spouse.
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