As a creditor, one tactic that you may use to seek payment for outstanding debts is known as wage garnishment. The big advantage of garnishing someone’s wages is that their employer sets the money aside before paying that individual. If you have a court order setting this up, then the money will be transferred directly to you, so the debtor has to pay off that outstanding balance. However, it happens slowly, over a long period of time, since wage garnishment just takes a small percentage of the wages.
But you may find yourself wondering if it’s possible to garnish other forms of financial assets. After all, you may believe that the individual has more money on hand than they are admitting to, so how can you get access to it?
A bank account garnishment
In some cases, the court can issue an order stating that you are allowed to garnish the person’s bank account. In other words, funds can be directly taken from that account to satisfy the financial obligations. This may be a faster way to pay off the debt, depending on how much money the borrower has on hand, rather than taking small monthly payments out of their wages.
That said, this action won’t be useful if the individual genuinely has no money on hand, which is why they have defaulted on their debt. In that case, wage garnishment would make more sense because the person has a steady income, even if they haven’t been saving their money.
At the end of the day, you need to carefully consider the unique situation to determine which action will be most appropriate and beneficial. It’s important to know the legal steps to take at this time, as garnishments do require a court order.