Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia
Can I use an Open Record search to find debtors bank account. I do have a filed judgment.?
Amount is over $27,000.00.
2 Answers from Attorneys
An open record sounds like a sunshine law that applies to government - whether it is municipal, county, state or federal.
You need to spend money and do an asset search. There are companies that can locate assets like this.
Or you can do what other creditors do - go and get a writ of execution (FiFa in GA) and have the sheriff hit up all the big banks in town and see if there are an other assets owned free and clear. If that fails, you get a lawyer and send written interrogatories to the debtor and ask about bank accounts. if the debtor works, you have the lawyer seek to garnish his/her pay.
Most creditors garnish pay. Is the debtor getting any kind of Social Security or unemployment? That cannot be touched and if that is all the income they have in the bank it cannot be seized either in most cases. You are trying to do something sophisticated and you have a large judgment so you can afford to hire a lawyer to execute and collect on the judgment if the debtor works, then you can garnish pay or see if the debtor has any other assets owned free and clear. Of course, this may drive the debtor into the arms of the bankruptcy court and if that happens you may get nothing but you first have to try to collect unless you know the debtor is judgment proof.