HELP! Checking account garnishment question.

[ohjoy]

So my husband and I have an old joint debt (judgement) that pops up from time to time. Since he was the primary breadwinner, it seems the lawyer is pursuing him aggressively. He owns his own business and so do I so, there have been no wage garnishment attempts but, there have been checking accounts garnishment attempts.

He's currently trying to work out a repayment plan for part of the debt and is telling me that I should do the same. Neither of us are keeping real money in our bank accounts but, it occurred to me that my Navy Federal Checking account has a $15K line of credit attatched to it. That said, the debt is more that $15K. If they try to garnish my Navy Federal account, will it pull from the credit line and max it out?

Again, they don't seem to be coming after me but, I need to be prepared.

[Moneyklutz]

I'd imagine if the creditor zeroed your account through garnishment/levy action and your line of credit kicked in afterwards to pay for incoming charges, the account balance would be back at zero and they should not be able to grab anything after that.

The only way I could see it becoming a worry is if your line of credit deposits an amount greater than the negative balance reported. Potentially they could pull that overage out. 

To defray your concern, can you disconnect/detach the line of credit to your checking account? I'd start there if that's an option.

Luck on your debt issue... When I was younger I had the IRS swoop in when I owned a small business and pull every dime from both personal and business checking and savings without any notice or warning over a miscommunication between our CPA and an agent. Was scary as heck. 

[Anonymous]

State laws vary on garnishments. Some states limit frequency.  They can only get the balance not any cl.  If you live in one state say California and bank a bank in Maryland then they  will have to domesticate the judgement to Maryland.  I know in some states wages cannot be garnished and I believe   in some states bank accounts cannot be garnished.   There are online forums dealing just with collection issues that can help you.  Personally I never believed garnishment was a good collection tool as it could cause the person to file bk