Turnover Orders in Judgment Collection
A turnover order is not aimed at property. It is aimed at a person: the court orders the debtor, or whoever is holding the debtor’s non-exempt property, to deliver it. Three questions follow: who the court can command, what it can command them to do, and what the person in the middle is exposed to.
The Remedy in Brief
A turnover order directs a person to hand over identified non-exempt property, rather than directing an officer to seize it. New York’s version, CPLR 5225, has three subdivisions, not two motions: (a) is a motion where the debtor is in possession or custody of the property, and on that showing the court shall order the money paid to the creditor and, if the amount to be so paid is insufficient to satisfy the judgment, other personal property delivered to a designated sheriff; (b) is a special proceeding against a possessor, a custodian, or a transferee; and (c) lets the court order any person to execute and deliver any document necessary to effect payment or delivery. Under those sections, jurisdiction over the person is the hinge, not the location of the asset. Where the third party owes the debtor money rather than holding a thing, CPLR 5227 is the route, and it can end in a judgment against that third party.
Two Minutes on the Turnover Order
The structure, in brief.
Watch Overview
An Order to the Person, Not to the Property
Why turnover behaves unlike the rest of the enforcement toolkit.
The familiar collection remedies are aimed at a thing. A writ of execution tells an officer to seize particular property; a levy freezes a particular account; a lien attaches to a particular parcel. In each the instrument is pointed at the asset.
A turnover order is built the other way round. It is a command addressed to a person to deliver identified non-exempt property. Nothing is seized when the order issues; it works because the court has authority over the person. That difference drives everything else: what the remedy reaches, where the property may sit, and who ends up in the room when it is heard.
New York’s Article 52 is a clean example to read. Under CPLR 5225(a) the court acts on a motion where the debtor is in possession or custody of money or other personal property in which the debtor has an interest, and on that showing the statute says the court shall order the debtor to pay the money over — and, if the amount to be so paid is insufficient to satisfy the judgment, to deliver other personal property to a designated sheriff. That is a direction to the debtor, not to a sheriff. The scope provision behind it, CPLR 5201(b), sets the outer limit: a money judgment may be enforced against any property which could be assigned or transferred, present or future, vested or not, unless it is exempt from application to the satisfaction of the judgment.
Three Subdivisions, Not Two Motions
Who holds the property decides what you file — and there is a third power that is easy to miss.
True of either route. Notice goes to the judgment debtor in the same manner as a summons, or by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested — subdivision (b) says the debtor shall also be served that way. The disposition is shared too: money is paid to the creditor, and only if the amount to be so paid is insufficient to satisfy the judgment is other personal property delivered to a designated sheriff. Those are not points of contrast.
| CPLR 5225(a) — the debtor holds it | CPLR 5225(b) — someone else holds it |
|---|---|
| Brought by motion in the existing case | Commenced as a separate special proceeding |
| Respondent is the judgment debtor | Respondent is a person in possession or custody, or a transferee of the property from the debtor |
| Showing: the debtor is in possession or custody of money or other personal property in which the debtor has an interest | Showing: the debtor is entitled to possession, or the creditor’s rights are superior to those of the transferee |
| No costs provision in this branch | Costs shall not be awarded against a person who did not dispute the judgment debtor’s interest or right to possession |
| No intervention provision in this branch | The court may permit the judgment debtor to intervene, and any adverse claimant, whose rights are determined under CPLR 5239 |
Then there is subdivision (c), which is neither of those motions and is why “two motions” undersells the section. Its whole text: the court may order any person to execute and deliver any document necessary to effect payment or delivery. That is a power to make somebody sign — endorse a certificate, execute a transfer — and its respondent class is the widest in the section. It is not a power to order production of records; that is a different idea.
The transferee branch is why turnover and a traced asset transfer travel together: subdivision (b) can be brought against a person who is a transferee of money or other personal property from the judgment debtor, and one of its two alternative showings is that the judgment creditor’s rights to the property are superior to those of the transferee. If that trail is what your motion is missing, you can open an asset search with the debtor’s identifiers.
Why It Can Reach Across a State Line
Jurisdiction over the person, not the situs of the asset.
In New York, because the order runs against a person, the question the Court of Appeals answered was whether the court has personal jurisdiction over that person — not where the asset sits. It took the point in Koehler v Bank of Bermuda Ltd., 12 N.Y.3d 533 (2009), on a certified question from the Second Circuit: “we hold that a New York court with personal jurisdiction over a defendant may order him to turn over out-of-state property regardless of whether the defendant is a judgment debtor or a garnishee.” The certificates were not in New York. The holder was. The Court drew the line against attachment in its own words: “In the attachment scenario, authority is conferred on the court in part or in whole by the situs of property within New York. In postjudgment enforcement, such in rem jurisdiction is not required.” Hence turnover and attachment or receivership are not interchangeable.
Two things about that decision are easy to miss. It was 4-3: Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick and Graffeo concurred with Judge Pigott, and Judge Smith dissented in a separate opinion joined by Judges Read and Jones, writing that the majority’s reading “may well be unconstitutional in many of its applications.” And the jurisdictional premise was conceded, not fought out — the garnishee bank “eventually consented, by letter dated October 9, 2003, to the personal jurisdiction of the court as of the time that Koehler had commenced the proceeding.” Read it for what it is: a 2009 holding on a certified question, over three dissents. The dissent also supplies the caution for a reader outside New York: what a judgment creditor can do in New York, he can also do “in Alabama, Alaska and 47 other states, if those states interpret their garnishment statutes as the majority interprets ours.”
In federal court the referral is explicit. Rule 69(a)(1) directs that the procedure on execution, and in proceedings supplementary to and in aid of judgment or execution, must accord with the procedure of the state where the court is located, but a federal statute governs to the extent it applies. If the judgment is in one state and the property in another, read our guide to domesticating a judgment in another state before assuming the order travels.
The Person in the Middle
What the statute says to the non-party who is holding it.
A good deal of Article 52 is addressed to the person who is neither creditor nor debtor: the relative holding the certificates, the escrow, the agent, the company that owes the debtor money. What that person is looking at decides whether they fight or fold.
They may not have to pay for showing up. Under CPLR 5225(b), costs of the proceeding shall not be awarded against a person who did not dispute the judgment debtor’s interest or right to possession; CPLR 5227, the debt branch, says the same of a person who did not dispute the indebtedness. Both are a shall not, not a factor the court weighs.
They can also walk out worse off. CPLR 5227 reaches any person who “is or will become indebted to the judgment debtor” — a future or contingent debt, not only one due today. The court may require that person to pay the debt to the creditor on maturity and to execute and deliver any document necessary to effect payment, or it may direct that a judgment be entered against that person in favour of the creditor. Note the verb: 5225(a) and (b) say the court shall order or require; 5227 says may.
Other claimants can be let in. Both 5225(b) and 5227 let the court permit the judgment debtor to intervene, and permit any adverse claimant to intervene with rights determined under CPLR 5239. That section is a proceeding in its own right, open to any interested person, with a hard timing bar: it must be commenced prior to the application of the property or debt by a sheriff or receiver to the satisfaction of the judgment. The court may vacate the execution or order, void the levy, direct the disposition of the property or debt, or direct that damages be awarded; where there appear to be disputed questions of fact it shall order a separate trial, naming who holds the property meanwhile and what undertaking they must give; and a claim it finds fraudulent can cost the claimant the other side’s reasonable expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.
And the court can turn the procedure down. CPLR 5240 lets the court, at any time, on its own initiative or on the motion of any interested person, “and upon such notice as it may require,” make an order denying, limiting, conditioning, regulating, extending or modifying the use of any enforcement procedure. Six verbs, and they are not synonyms. “Any interested person” reaches the holder. The section also imports CPLR 3104, which is named here, not described.
Where It Gets Filed, and Who Fixes That
The forum follows the respondent, which is often not the debtor.
CPLR 5221 is captioned “Where enforcement proceeding commenced.” Subdivisions (a)(1) to (a)(3) route defined matters to a city court, a district court or the New York City civil court. Subdivision (a)(4) is the residual rule for every case those do not cover: where the judgment was entered in a court of this state, the special proceeding is commenced either in the supreme court or a county court, in a county in which the respondent resides or is regularly employed or has a place for the regular transaction of business in person — or, if there is no such county, in any county in which he may be served or the county in which the judgment was entered. The pronoun does the work: in a 5225(b) or 5227 proceeding the respondent is the person in the middle, not the debtor.
Subdivision (b) extends the logic to the motion branch. A notice or subpoena authorised by Article 52 may be issued from, and a motion under the article made before, any court in which a special proceeding could be commenced if the person served were the respondent. The person you serve fixes the forum even on a motion — which is why locating the holder, not only the debtor, is part of the work before anything is filed.
What It Reaches That a Levy Does Not
Four categories where ordinary execution is the wrong instrument.
Property in the debtor’s own hands
Cash, bullion, jewellery, collectibles, a watch. Under CPLR 5225(a) the respondent is the debtor, and what issues is a direction to the debtor to pay or deliver rather than a direction to an officer.
Instruments and certificates
Where a debt or property is evidenced by a negotiable instrument, a negotiable document of title or a certificate of stock, CPLR 5201(c)(4) treats the paper as property capable of delivery and makes the person holding it the garnishee — except that UCC 8-112 governs the extent to which and the means by which an interest in a certificated security may be reached. That section is named here, not described.
Property a third party is holding
A relative, an agent, an escrow, a transferee who took the asset after the debt arose. Where the property or fund is held or controlled by a fiduciary, CPLR 5201(c)(2) names the executor, trustee or other fiduciary as the garnishee.
The document that moves the asset
Some assets do not move until somebody signs. Under CPLR 5225(c) the court may order any person to execute and deliver the document that effects payment or delivery, and that person need not be the debtor or the holder.
None of this reaches exempt property: CPLR 5201 carves out anything exempt from application to the satisfaction of the judgment, so confirm the exemption before the motion is drafted. Our guide to what a judgment can and cannot reach is the starting point; where the debt began with a foreclosure sale, the deficiency judgment guide covers that judgment.
How Specific the Property Must Be — and Where That Bends
A drafting requirement, not a rule of nature.
A court has to be able to describe what it is ordering delivered, so in practice both the motion and the special proceeding are drafted around property the creditor can already name. What CPLR 5225 itself sets is a showing: under subdivision (a), that the debtor is in possession or custody of money or other personal property in which the debtor has an interest; under subdivision (b), that the debtor is entitled to possession of the property, or that the creditor’s rights to it are superior to those of the transferee. Meeting either showing is why a documented asset picture and a debtor’s examination normally come before the motion.
That is a feature of the statute you are working under, though, not a law of nature, and it is worth saying so rather than stating the requirement flatly. Texas’s turnover statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Section 31.002, expressly allows a court to enter or enforce an order requiring the turnover of non-exempt property without identifying the specific property in the order — a different starting point for a creditor whose asset picture is good but incomplete. That statute, and how Texas practice runs on it, is covered on our Texas judgment collection guide; creditors enforcing in Florida will find that state’s sequence in the Florida judgment collection guide.
When Turnover Is the Wrong Tool
Six situations that point somewhere other than a turnover motion.
The money is a future stream
Rent, royalties, commissions and receivables come in over time rather than sitting in a holder’s hands. CPLR 5227 reaches a person who “is or will become indebted to the judgment debtor,” so a future or contingent debt is not outside Article 52; the separate assignment order route is covered on its own page.
The asset is an LLC interest
Whether a membership interest is reached by a charging order, and whether that route is exclusive, are questions of the governing LLC statute rather than of the sections quoted here.
What is owed is a debt, not a thing
Where the third party owes the debtor money rather than holding property, CPLR 5227 is the proceeding, and it can end in a judgment against that third party.
The property is claimed exempt
Property exempt from application to the satisfaction of the judgment is outside the remedy; that fight belongs in the exemption analysis.
The debtor has already refused
The Koehler court put it flatly: disobedience of a turnover order is contempt of court and punishable as such. The fight is then over enforcement of the order, not its wording.
The estate needs running, not handing over
A going business, or property that must be managed and sold, calls for custody rather than delivery. Where a receiver is already appointed, CPLR 5228(a) directs that an order for payment or delivery go to the receiver rather than to a sheriff.
Our Part: Naming the Thing
Where the research ends and your counsel begins.
A turnover motion is only as good as the description of the property in it, and that description is a factual problem rather than a legal one. Working from lawful public records and licensed data under a permissible purpose such as enforcing your judgment, we search for what the debtor holds and where it went. We search for the holder as well as the debtor, because Article 52 fixes the forum by the respondent, and the respondent has to be identified before the papers can be served.
If a request looks like it is really about reaching someone who has fled an abuser or is hiding for their safety, we decline it and do not take the file, whatever the paperwork says. Which motion is right in your state is a decision for your lawyer — this page is general information about a court procedure, not legal advice.
What We Commit To
We report what the records show about the non-exempt asset and whoever is holding it, and what could not be confirmed, with sources attached, typically within 24 hours of opening the file. We do not draft the motion, choose the remedy, or appear in your case.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a turnover order, in one sentence?
A post-judgment court order directing a person, the judgment debtor or someone else holding the debtor’s property, to deliver identified non-exempt property, rather than directing an officer to seize it.
Can a turnover order really reach property in another state?
In New York it can, where the court has personal jurisdiction over whoever holds the property. In Koehler v Bank of Bermuda Ltd., 12 N.Y.3d 533 (2009), New York’s Court of Appeals answered a certified question that way: such a court may order a defendant to turn over out-of-state property whether that defendant is the judgment debtor or a garnishee. The decision was 4-3, and the garnishee had consented to jurisdiction by letter in 2003.
Who can a turnover order be directed at?
Under CPLR 5225(a) the respondent is the judgment debtor. Under 5225(b) it is a person in possession or custody of the property, or a transferee of it from the debtor. Under 5225(c) the court may order any person to execute and deliver any document necessary to effect payment or delivery.
If I am holding property for someone with a judgment against them, will this cost me?
CPLR 5225(b) says costs of the proceeding shall not be awarded against a person who did not dispute the judgment debtor’s interest or right to possession, and CPLR 5227 says the same of a person who did not dispute the indebtedness. That protects you from costs, not from the order: under 5227 the court may direct that a judgment be entered against you in the creditor’s favour.
Can another creditor claim the same property in the proceeding?
Yes. The court may permit any adverse claimant to intervene, with rights determined under CPLR 5239. A 5239 proceeding must be commenced before a sheriff or receiver applies the property or debt to the judgment, and where there appear to be disputed questions of fact the court shall order a separate trial.
Do I have to name the exact property?
A court has to be able to describe what it is ordering delivered, which is why a documented asset picture usually comes first. How far that goes depends on the statute you are under: Texas’s turnover statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. and Rem. Code Section 31.002, expressly allows an order requiring the turnover of non-exempt property without identifying the specific property in the order.
Does the same procedure apply in federal court?
Rule 69(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure directs that the procedure on execution, and in proceedings supplementary to and in aid of judgment or execution, must accord with the procedure of the state where the court is located, but a federal statute governs to the extent it applies.
What part of this do you actually do?
The factual half. We search public records and licensed data under a permissible purpose for the debtor’s non-exempt property and whoever is holding it, and report what the records show and what could not be confirmed. Drafting the motion is your counsel’s work.
Name the Property, Then Order It Delivered
Give us the debtor’s identifiers and the judgment, and we will run the search and report what the records show and what we could not confirm. Tell us about the file and we will say what we can look for.
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