Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Missouri

Re: garnishment

The process in garnishment is designed to provide some due process to you and your bank. The bank receives a notice of garnishment saying that it must place an administrative hold on your funds sufficient to satisfy the judgment amount. It then has to answer "interrogatories to garnishee" where it tells the attorney for the judgment creditor how much money you have (for example, if the judgment was for $1000, and you only had $500 in your account, it would tell the creditor that). Once the judgment creditor receives notice of the answers to interrogatories, it then goes to the court with a "pay in order" which requires the bank to pay the amount of the judgment into the court. Once it pays it into the Court, there will be no more administrative hold on your account, and the money will be gone. Keep in mind that some banks charge a fee for this kind of process just like you'd written a bad check. Also keep in mind that if you get garnished, some banks won't want to deal with you anymore.

If you were to call the attorney for the judgment creditor and explain the situation, I am sure that they would advance the process, or maybe even work with you to resolve the situation. Most creditor attorneys just want to get paid, and garnishment is one sure way to do it.

And yes, your company in NJ can be garnished, but if the total judgment is satisfied by your bank account garnishment, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Hope all this works out for you.