Money & Debt

If you have won a judgment for money against your debtor, you can file a third-party citation to Discover Assets to Debtor’s Bank (also referred to as a “bank garnishment”). This lets you collect money by taking the debtor's property that is held by the debtor’s bank.

Use our easy form to fill out the citation once you know about the debtor’s bank accounts. When completing the form, you must use the bank’s correct legal name. You may call the bank and ask them for their correct legal name.

Process 

Instead of serving the citation to the individual debtor, such as the case in the Citation to Discover Assets, you will serve the citation to the debtor’s bank. You can serve the bank’s registered agent or any agent at any branch; it doesn’t need to be the branch that the debtor uses. To serve the bank, you can use a sheriff, private processor server, or Certified Mail.

The person serving the citation must send a copy of the citation to the debtor by regular first-class mail within 3 days after service upon the bank. If you are using certified mail to serve the bank, wait at least 3 days before mailing a copy of the citation to the debtor. This delay helps prevent the debtor from taking money out of the bank account before the bank processes the citation and freezes the account.

Once the bank receives the citation, it must freeze the debtor's account. The account stays frozen until the court decides whether you get the money. Please note that the debtor is entitled to certain exemptions for money held in their account and may also file a motion to unfreeze their bank account for emergency reasons. These are complicated rules, so ask the bank or a lawyer if you have questions.