Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: garnishment of rental income

An issue here may be whether you are indeed partners in a legal sense, and also whether the judgment is related to partnership business. Joint ownership of income property does not necessarily make the owners partners nor the property partnership property, but that could be the case.

Your portion of the income from jointly-owned property is otherwise not subject to levy or, as you call it, garnishment. Various provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure will protect your interest, if you act upon them. Most of them lie in the sections relating to enforecement of judgments beginning at CCP section 795 and many of them are around the 801 series of sections. They are a bit scattered, and there are so many separate provisions that might apply to your situation depending upon exactly what is going on and where things stand in the attachment and levy process it isn't possible to point to a specific section that has your answer.

Note CCP section 699.720(a)(2) stating that the interest of a partner in a partnership is not subject to execution if the partnership is not a judgment debtor.

In general also, a lien against the interest of one joint tenant is not a lien against the interest of the other. This is case law - I don't know of a statute to this effect.

A starting point would be no notify the creditor, the creditor's attorney, and the levying officer if any, that you have a separate one-half interest in the joint-tenancy property and the income derived from it, and these interests are not subject to attachment, levy or execution for the debts of the other joint tenant. See what happens, and if this isn't sufficient, get a local lawyer familiar with collection of judgments to assist you.

Re: garnishment of rental income

By filing the appropriate pleadings in opposition to any levy action on the judgment. Consult with local counsel to timely do so, to avoid further problems. Feel free to contact me for legal help if needed, if the case is in SoCal courts.