Garnishment

Abstract All European Union legal systems contain rules to allow execution out of debts. A judgment creditor’s claim may be enforced by requiring a third party who owes money to the judgment debtor to pay that money to the judgment creditor instead. The third party’s debt to the judgment debtor is seized by the judgment creditor, with the result that payment cannot be made to the judgment debtor and must instead be made to the judgment creditor. In practice the procedure is commonly used to enable the judgment creditor to access funds of the debtor held in a bank account, or to seize a proportion of the debtor’s wages or salary. For present purposes such execution will be referred to as ‘garnishment’.