A writ was served against a joint bank account with my current husband. The account was set out as exempt in a motion I filed myself. The original debt was 15 years ago with ex-husband. The bank has frozen the account so we have aboslutely no money even to hire a lawyer! The writ was served the very same day my husband's pay check was automatically deposited into the account one day before the mortgage was to be debited. It seems they may have been monitoring the account. Why can they take my current husband's money? He had nothing do do with that old debt and he (nor I) were told this would take place. Do either of us have any recourse?

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Originally Posted by paintpretty

A writ was served against a joint bank account with my current husband. The account was set out as exempt in a motion I filed myself. The original debt was 15 years ago with ex-husband. The bank has frozen the account so we have aboslutely no money even to hire a lawyer! The writ was served the very same day my husband's pay check was automaticly deposited into the account one day before the morgage was to be debited. It seems they may have been monitoring the account. Why can they take my current husband's money? He had nothing do do with that old debt and he (nor I) were told this would take place. Do either of us have any recourse?

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I was trying to determine where you lived - US ? Canada ? UK? from your profile, I am not familiar with a "writ" that you speak of that you said was served againt the joint bank acct of you and your current spouse. Also could you explain your statement "The account was set out as exempt in a motion I filed myself" I, an others, reading this question might be able to assist you better, if we knew what country, US state, etc that you lived in. BUT regardless, let us assume that your joint bank acct has been "attache" by some governmental / private authority. I would venture to say that yes that entity can attach your joint acct and probably wihout notice to you. Please elaborate so I and others might be able to respond.

It would appear that they were able to show to a court that you also put money into that account, if you did not put any of your money in there, you will have to show that to the court.

So you will have to file again to have that account exempted, or at least your husbands money you prove is his.

For short term, he needs to stop the direct deposit so this does not happen again.

Call the lenders and explain, you are not going to fix this short term.

If in US, FIle Motion to Quash the Writ, this will give you some time to find out what options you have.

Go to the court and get a copy of the judgment for the writ.

Lets see if I have this straight. A creditor has obtained a judgement against you and your ex for some old debt. Even with the judgement, you have not paid the debt off (why?). At some point you went to court to fight this judgement and were unsuccessful in having it vacated, but were able to exclude certain assets, apparently on the grounds that, even though the account was joint you hadn't contributed anything to it. Do I have I it straight?

It does appear they have been monitoring the account. They were able to show the court that you were comingling funds in this account so the court decided to remove the exclusion and issued a garnishment order. As for being told, you apparently knew the judgement existed, so you knew this was a possibility.

You need to go back to the court and find out why the exclusion was lifted and challenge that.

One last point. While some attys might want money up front, many will bill you for services.