Tennessee Bank Garnishment: How to Levy a Debtor's Bank Account

Bank Levies vs. Wage Garnishment

A bank garnishment and a wage garnishment both come from the same place — the General Sessions Clerk — but they work very differently. Wage garnishment creates a continuing lien that drains a portion of each paycheck over six months. A bank garnishment is a one-time snapshot: it freezes whatever is in the debtor's account at the exact moment the sheriff serves the writ on the bank. Funds deposited five minutes later are untouched.

That "one-shot" nature makes timing matter more than anything else. If you know the debtor's payday, serving the bank levy the day after a direct deposit hits gives you the best chance of capturing meaningful funds.

How to File a Bank Garnishment

The process mirrors wage garnishment with a few differences:

1. Wait for finality — the 10-day appeal window under T.C.A. § 27-5-108 must expire with no appeal filed
2. File an Application for Non-Wage Garnishment with the General Sessions Clerk, identifying the bank and branch. Pay the clerk filing fee ($25) and sheriff service fee ($50)
3. The sheriff serves the writ on the bank — the bank immediately freezes non-exempt funds in the debtor's account
4. The bank files a Garnishee Answer within 30 days, detailing how much was frozen and remitting non-exempt balances to the court clerk
5. The debtor has 20 days from mailing of the required notice to file a motion claiming an exemption for the bank garnishment (T.C.A. § 26-2-407)

You can file multiple bank garnishments simultaneously at different institutions if you suspect the debtor has accounts at more than one bank.

Federal Benefit Protections

Banks must run a mandatory account review under 31 C.F.R. Part 212 before freezing anything. The bank looks back two months and calculates the total of direct-deposited federal benefits during that period. That amount stays fully accessible to the account holder — the bank cannot freeze it.

Protected benefits include:

• Social Security and SSI
• Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits
• Civil service and railroad retirement
• Federal employee retirement

State unemployment benefits and public assistance are also exempt under T.C.A. § 26-2-111, though the debtor may need to file a Motion to Stop Garnishment to release those funds if the bank doesn't catch them automatically.

Joint Accounts

When the debtor shares an account with someone who doesn't owe the judgment, Tennessee law presumes all funds belong to the debtor. The non-debtor co-owner can intervene by filing a motion and providing documentary proof — pay stubs, tax returns, deposit receipts — that specific funds came exclusively from their own income. Funds proven to be the non-debtor's must be released by court order.

What You'll Actually Collect

If the debtor qualifies under Tennessee's residency requirement, the $10,000 personal property exemption under T.C.A. § 26-2-103 can be applied to bank account balances. Combined with federal benefit protections, the amount you actually capture may be significantly less than the account balance. This is why bank levies work best against debtors who you know have substantial non-exempt funds — typically business owners or people with significant non-benefit income flowing through their accounts.

If a bank levy comes up short, you can issue another one later. There's no limit on how many times you can garnish the same account, but each requires a fresh writ and fresh fees.

For the full bank garnishment workflow — including how to time the levy, handle exemption claims, and combine it with wage garnishment for maximum recovery — see the Tennessee Judgment Collection guide.

See more Tennessee guides →