[MelanieW]

I received a judgement against someone for 10,000. Am I able to send bank suponeas to various banks and freeze several accounts at once since I am unaware of the account balances. I.e. what if one account at bank 1 has an account with 15,000 and bank 2 notifies me of an account with 20,000. Are both accounts now frozen? Have I broken any laws by doing this?

[Justice Matters]

Without knowing the specific Small Claims Court Rules of your jurisdiction (and we are only experts with Ontario's rules) we can only give you general information on garnishments.

Generally speaking, there is no limit as to how many enforcement remedies you may exercise at once. If you want to send garnishments to every bank in town your only risk may be wasted court fees in the event a specific bank does not have an account for your debtor.

Furthermore, and again depending on your jurisdiction, garnishments usually need to be debtor AND garnishee specific. In Ontario, it is not enough to know which bank a debtor uses. You also need to know which bank branch the debtor maintains as his/her home branch. With that being said, I have seen instances where a creditor has filed multiple garnishments against various bank branches until they finally hit the right one.

Additionally, and for your information, banks can be very particular when it comes to garnishments. If the debtor's name on the garnishment does not match EXACTLY the name on the account they may reject it with no explanation other than "no account found."

If you are having problems executing a garnishment a private investigator or skip tracer may be able to help you locate where your debtor banks. Your jurisdiction may also provide for debtors' examinations whereby a debtor is required to attend court and disclose any and all information regarding their finances to you.