Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Illinois

Re: Citation to discover assets to third party

To answer your questions:

1. Yes, the bank is required to to freeze both accounts.

2. The bank is required to complete and submit an answer to the bank citation. This answer is then mailed/faxed to the plaintiff's attorney. The answer will state if you have accounts, what type of accounts and how much is in the accounts. Your accounts will then remain frozen until the court date.

3. If you wrote outstanding checks which have not cleared then those checks will become NSF checks. You will not have any claim against the plaintiff to reimburse you for the NSF fees.

4. You were free to take money out and deposit money into the bank accounts up to the point when the bank received the citation. At that point the bank was obligated under law to freeze all activity in the accounts.

5. The joint account has an adverse claimant on it. That simply means that your mom is listed on the account with you. Once the attorney receives the answers to the citation and sees that there is an adverse claimant then the attorney must send written notice to the adverse claimant informing her of the citation and of the court date. On the court date you mom can appear and present evidence that the money in the joint account is all or partially hers. This evidence must be written evidence.

Now with all that being said you are entitled to an exemption when it comes to matters such as bank citations. One of the documents you should have received is the Notice of Citation. By law you are allowed to claim up to a $4,000 personal exemption. Sometimes this is called a "wild card" exemption. So that means that if the bank has froze $2,000 then you should appear in court on the day for the return of the bank citation and inform the judge that you want to take your personal exemption. The court will instruct the attorney to draft an order which lists your exemption and returns the money the bank has frozen back to you. Now lets say the bank has frozen $5,000. Then you go to court, claim your $4,000 exemption and the order will say that the bank should return $4,000 to you and $1,000 shall be sent to the plaintiff to be applied to the outstanding balance due on the debt.