New York Judgment Enforcement: 6 Things a Creditor Can Seize and 4 They Cannot

A judgment converts a disputed invoice into a license for collection, and the license has edges. New York law hands the creditor six distinct points of entry into the debtor world while fencing four categories of property outside it, and the debtor who cannot name all ten negotiates from imagination rather than position.

1. The Bank Account, Restrained or Levied

The account is the first destination because money at rest is easier to hold than money in motion. CPLR 5222 authorizes the restraining notice against property and debts the garnishee holds or later receives, for one year against a third party, while CPLR 5232 puts the sheriff behind a levy compelling transfer and payment to the sheriff. The restraint on a natural person account collapses without the exemption notice and the two claim forms served alongside it. Debtor counsel reads the bank papers first.

2. The Paycheck, in Measured Installments

Wages yield to enforcement by degrees, by design rather than accident. CPLR 5231 permits an income execution for installments of not more than ten percent of money the debtor receives or will receive, with nothing withheld for a week unless disposable earnings exceed the greater of thirty times the federal or thirty times the state minimum wage, and with weekly withholding capped at twenty five percent of disposable earnings or the excess over that floor, whichever is less. The federal floor under 15 U.S.C. 1673 mirrors that formula, outside support, tax, and chapter thirteen orders. A guarantor salary answers only to judgment enforcement against the guarantor as an individual.

3. The Real Property, Liened for a Decade

Land waits longer than any other asset. CPLR 5203 makes the docketed money judgment a lien on the debtor real property in the county, and from docketing until ten years after filing of the judgment roll, no transfer of the debtor interest defeats the creditor outside the enumerated cases. The lien sits in the county clerk records with the patience of a landlord who does not knock, present in every title search. The court may extend the lien only for stayed time or the time needed to complete advertisement and sale. Sale of an above exemption residence runs by special proceeding.

4. The Personal Property, Turned Over by Order

In 2019, before the 2021 and 2022 amendments touched several Article 52 sections, turnover already required what it requires now, which is a court order and no less. CPLR 5225 compels delivery of money or property on motion where the debtor holds the property, and by special proceeding where a third party holds it, on a showing of superior rights. Adverse claimants are heard under CPLR 5239. The section rewards precise description: account number, serial plate, certificate number, and any document the court names. Vague demands produce vague orders.

5. The Receivables, Intercepted at the Source

Levy by service of execution reaches any interest in personal property not capable of delivery and any debt owed to the debtor, where the garnishee holds for the debtor or the creditor specified the item. The garnishee must transfer and pay to the sheriff, and the levy voids at ninety days except as to property conveyed to the sheriff or placed inside a turnover proceeding. Customer payments, contract balances, and account proceeds fall inside this net where the collateral description and the levy coincide. Intercepting a receivable is collection at its most literal, and funders pursue it with a diligence absent from their reconciliation correspondence. The intercepted check never reaches the debtor hands.

6. The Collateral, Repossessed Without Force

Where the MCA file carries a genuine security interest, the funder need not wait for the sheriff. UCC 9-609 permits the secured party to take possession of the collateral after default, with or without judicial process, only where possession proceeds without breach of the peace. The lien follows the collateral into identifiable proceeds under UCC 9-315 unless the disposition was authorized free and clear, which is why equipment, inventory, and identifiable proceeds answer. A bare UCC filing proves neither the debt amount nor enforceability, and counsel tests perfection, description, and default before conceding that any repossession was lawful. This decides more repossessions than any argument about the balance. Collateral schedules signed at funding decide most disputes before counsel meets the client, so counsel ensures the schedule is in the file before answering, though the schedule in any single file proves nothing about perfection against later lienors.

Possession without process is a privilege the statute grants and the peace limits.

7. The Household Goods the Law Leaves Alone

CPLR 5205 exempts the domestic core: stoves, clothing, furniture, tools of the trade to three thousand dollars, one vehicle to four thousand dollars above liens, and one thousand dollars where no homestead is claimed. The catalogue reads as antiquarian until the marshal inventories a home office. The legislative judgment behind the list is that collection must leave a life standing.

8. The Home Equity Within the County Tier

CPLR 5206 exempts owner occupied principal residence equity to one hundred fifty thousand dollars in New York City and the surrounding downstate counties, one hundred twenty five thousand in the counties of Dutchess, Albany, Columbia, Orange, Saratoga and Ulster, and seventy five thousand elsewhere, above liens and encumbrances, unless the judgment is wholly for the purchase price. The lien attaches to the surplus, and sale above the tier runs only by special proceeding, with the exempt share preserved for a year. The county tiers above reflect the captured revision, and counsel confirms current figures before any equity calculation. Equity below the tier is not a litigation position.

It is a wall.

9. The Benefit Funds in the Restrained Account

Exempt money does not become collectible by arriving at a bank. The statutory debtor notice catalogues supplemental security income, social security, support, unemployment, disability, workers compensation, pensions, veterans benefits, and ninety percent of wages earned in the last sixty days, with two thousand five hundred dollars of electronically deposited exempt payments within the last forty five days held outside the restraint. Tracing decides each dollar, and the exercise is extremely document heavy. The bank initial hold decides nothing about the outcome. Most debtors call after the levy, when the account is already empty. Without testimony about the source of the deposits, papers alone establish no exemption. Does the creditor objection ever succeed on declarations alone.

10. The Retirement Benefits and the Federal Refund

ERISA plan terms bar assignment and alienation of pension benefits, outside qualified domestic relations orders, placing qualified retirement funds beyond ordinary creditor reach. The funder may hold a valid judgment. That judgment cannot divert a federal refund, because offset under 31 U.S.C. 3720a runs for agency debts through a channel no private funder operates.

Delancey Street reviews enforcement posture as a settlement company rather than a law firm, and the objective is to ensure independent counsel handles every filing the map discloses. Ten categories sound like arithmetic for anyone still negotiating from imagination. They behave like terrain.