Answers about Garnishments
Select from the following questions about garnishments and court judgments.
- What is a garnishment?
- Can my salary be garnished without a court proceeding?
- Can my bank account be garnished without a court proceeding?
- Can my Social Security or other Federal benefits be garnished?
- My bank received a garnishment order. Is my bank required to determine if my bank account includes Social Security or other Federal benefit payments?
- Are my Federal benefits automatically protected by my bank from a garnishment order, or do I have to do something to protect them?
- Are there other Federal benefits that are not automatically protected from a garnishment order? If so, what do I need to do?
- Are there any cases in which my Federal benefits are not protected from garnishment?
- Are my state benefits exempt from garnishment?
- Is my bank allowed to charge me a fee when it receives a garnishment order against me?
- Is my bank required to tell me when it receives a garnishment order?
- Could I receive a garnishment order from someone other than my bank?
- Does my bank have to tell the court or my creditors if my deposit account contains Social Security, Veteran’s, or other Federal benefits that may not be garnished? Will my bank still freeze my account?
- What can I do if my bank account is frozen and it includes Social Security or other Federal benefit payments?
- After my bank froze my account, some of my checks were returned unpaid. May the bank impose an insufficient funds or “NSF” fee for these returned checks?
- A collection agency repeatedly tries to garnish my bank account. Each time this happens, my bank account is frozen. I provided the collection agency appropriate notification that the account contains only Social Security or other Federal benefit payments that are exempt from garnishment but they continue to try to garnish my account. May the collection agency continue to do this, even though it knows that the account contains only funds that are exempt from garnishment?
- What happens if my state provides greater protection against freezing or garnishing my money than does the new federal law?