How to Fight a Bank Account Garnishment
Garnishing your bank account is the final step that a creditor would try against you to recover a debt. In the process of bank account garnishment, the creditor has to obtain a legal order from the court to freeze your bank account and take away your money to satisfy a judgment. Unlike laws that protect your wages, there are no laws to protect your bank account: creditors can take all the money in your account if they have the right forms from the court.
There are several possible ways you can keep your money safe, even when you are holding a huge amount of outstanding debts.
- Keep your bank account empty, so that the garnishment won’t have any effect: if there’s no money in your account then there’s no money for the creditors to take away.
- Request that your employer provide you with paper checks instead of direct depositing checks into your bank account. Cash your paycheck at your bank instead of depositing it. One thing you have to keep in mind is you will then have to pay your bills by using money orders. If you keep money in your bank account and write checks, creditors could garnish the checking account before the checks are paid. You could find yourself in court answering for a number of bounced checks. And, believe it or not, district attorneys don’t accept the defense that a shady bill collector emptied your account and caused you to bounce your checks.
- If you earn exempt funds like social security or disability, set up an exemption bank account. By doing this you will have the law on your side to protect the money in your account, as this requires filing of an exemption with the court. These are very nearly never granted: social security and disability are protected in almost every state.
- Open a bank account in a different state. There is a fair chance of the creditors tracing this new account of yours and eventually emptying it. But this won’t occur overnight, as they would have to deal with the courts in a different state and go through their set of exemptions and rules. If you don’t owe a huge amount, the creditors may not find it worthwhile to pursue you in another state.
- Perhaps the best way to protect your money from getting garnished is, to open an offshore bank account and save all your money in it. It is 100% legal and is being utilized by individuals and organizations across nations to safe guard their assets. Just make sure you report any dividends or interest earned to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
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