Bank Account Garnishments

[brokenomore]

How often can a creditor garnish an account?

Who pays the garnishment bank fee?

[lrprn]

How often can a creditor garnish an account?

Your state determines how much of your income can be garnished - in most it's 25%, in others 10%. Texas doesn't allow garnishment.

For example, in a 25% garnishment state, if one creditor gets the whole 25% with the first court judgment, then the other creditors who might try to garnish are out of luck. If the first creditor gets a judgment to take 15%, then that leaves 10% for other creditors to garnish. Bottom line - you can only be garnished for the maximum of what your state allows regardless of the number of creditors who try.

Who pays the garnishment bank fee?

Not sure what you mean here. Normally garnishments are taken directly from your paycheck by your employer and sent to the creditor with no bank involved. Can you please clarify?

[MSbklawyer]

A bank garnishment is where they snag funds that you have on deposit. Creditors much prefer these to wage garnishments because they are not limited to the 25%. (Unless you can prove that they are strictly wages on deposit and haven't been comingled with other funds.)

If there's any fee for the garnishment, and I've never seen one, the bank would surely expect the creditor to pay it since they are the ones garnishing. But I would bet that if you read all four pages of that microscopic print on the form you signed when you opened the account, the bank has some way of putting you on the hook for it if they forget to collect from the creditor.

[frogger]

The bank normally does not charge a fee to the account, however the garnishment order has a price on it. That fee is added to your garnishment.

[treehugger1]

Listed in my bank "fee" schedule is legal actions against the account for $25.00. In the past, I had an account that stated $75.00. I think that was Chase. I'll take the contrarian point of view here and say "most" banks probably do charge a fee. I would suppose that this is also state dependent.

[HHM]

It is becoming more common that the bank charges a fee to process the garnishment, and charges it to the account holder. The creditor pays the sheriff or process server who serves the garnishment.

[BKorbust]

BOA charged me a $100 fee last year when the Dept of Revenue tried to garnish my account. I was really happy about that.

[NoMoreCards]

A bank garnishment is where they snag funds that you have on deposit. Creditors much prefer these to wage garnishments because they are not limited to the 25%. (Unless you can prove that they are strictly wages on deposit and haven't been comingled with other funds.)

Any idea how someone could prove the funds on deposit were strictly wages?
If the funds are snagged, would proving it after the fact require the return of the remaining 75%?

Just curious, as I know someone who is worried about a bank garnishment and the only deposit they have had on their account is their wages via direct deposit. (This person has no other income)

[brokenomore]

I checked my bank's fees and there is a $75 charge for garnishments. Would that be charged to the creditor or to me?

I'm going to keep my account balance small, so they won't get much, but how often can they do it?

If they can do it every day or so, the bank fees would be horrendous.

[brokenomore]

I contacted the bank today and they said that depending upon the court order, a bank account could be garnished as often as daily.

There is a $75 fee that the bank charges to the account holder for each garnishment.

However the good news is that they will not garnish if there is not enough funds in the account to pay the fee plus something to the creditor, so if the balance remains below $75, there will be no garnishment and no fees.