New York Judgment Collection
New York hands a judgment creditor enforcement powers most states reserve to a judge. Under CPLR Article 52 the creditor’s attorney, as an officer of the court, signs and serves both the restraining notice that freezes a bank account (CPLR 5222) and the information subpoena that puts a bank, an employer, or a business partner under oath (CPLR 5224) – no motion, no order. The catch is written into the same statutes: each binds only a garnishee actually served, so a restraint aimed at the wrong institution freezes nothing. Article 52 assumes you already know which bank, which employer, which county holds the deed. Supplying that factual layer is our work. We are a skip-tracing and public-records research firm operating under a permissible purpose – not licensed private investigators, and not a law firm or collection agency – so we identify and locate; your counsel enforces. General information, not legal advice.
The Short Version
A New York money judgment is enforced under CPLR Article 52, and the state’s distinguishing feature is who gets to pull the levers. The judgment creditor’s attorney, as an officer of the court, issues the restraining notice (CPLR 5222) and the information subpoena (CPLR 5224) directly – no motion, no order. A restraining notice binds a third party for one year and reaches up to twice the amount due; an information subpoena must be answered in writing under oath within 7 days. Wage attachment runs through an income execution (CPLR 5231) capped at 10 percent of gross income, delivered first to the sheriff and only served on the employer after the debtor defaults for 20 days. Docketing with the county clerk creates a real-property lien that runs 10 years from filing of the judgment-roll (CPLR 5203) and can be renewed (CPLR 5014); the judgment itself is presumed satisfied after 20 years (CPLR 211(b)). Every one of those tools needs a named target. We supply that: the debtor located, the employer and banking relationship identified, the county where the real property sits. We never pretext and never touch private account contents. General information, not legal advice.
Watch: Collecting in New York
Why an Article 52 judgment is a find-the-target problem.
Watch Overview
What Article 52 Actually Lets You Do
The two powers your counsel can exercise without a judge.
The restraining notice (CPLR 5222). New York lets a restraining notice be issued by the clerk of the court or by the attorney for the judgment creditor acting as an officer of the court. Served on a bank, it forbids that bank from paying out or transferring the debtor’s money, and it binds the garnishee for one year from service or until the judgment is satisfied or vacated, whichever comes first. It reaches property the garnishee knows or has reason to believe the debtor has an interest in – which is why a notice that names a specific account or a specific debt owed to the debtor does more work than a generic one. The restraint is capped in practice: if the garnishee holds back an amount equal to twice the amount due on the judgment, the notice stops being effective as to anything else. Two limits matter enormously for planning. First, a restraining notice cannot be served on the debtor’s employer where the property sought is wages or salary – wages are reached by income execution, not by restraint. Second, leave of court is required to serve a second restraining notice on the same person for the same judgment, and no more than 2 restraining notices in any year may be served on a natural person’s banking-institution account.
The information subpoena (CPLR 5224). Subpoenas in New York may be issued without a court order by an attorney of record (CPLR 2302), and CPLR 5224 gives the judgment creditor a written-question version aimed squarely at asset discovery. It can be served by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested; the recipient must answer each question separately, in writing, under oath, and return the answers with the original questions within 7 days. Neither the judgment debtor nor any other person served with an information subpoena is entitled to a witness fee. There is a trap that catches unrepresented creditors constantly: when a private judgment creditor serves an information subpoena on someone other than the debtor, the subpoena must carry a signed certification that the creditor or counsel has a reasonable belief the recipient holds information that will help collect the judgment, referencing CPLR 5224 and General Business Law section 601. A third-party information subpoena without that certification is deemed null and void. That is not a formality – it is the difference between a bank answering and a bank ignoring you.
What happens when the answers do not come back. CPLR 5223 sets the scope: a judgment creditor may compel disclosure of all matter relevant to the satisfaction of the judgment. The information subpoena is the cheap first move, but it is not the only one – CPLR 5224 also authorizes a subpoena requiring attendance for a deposition on oral or written questions, and a subpoena duces tecum requiring the production of books and papers. The duces tecum version reaches material held outside New York where the person or entity is in the state or does business here, which matters when the debtor’s records sit with an out-of-state accountant or a national bank’s operations center. If a subpoena is simply ignored, the remedy is contempt under CPLR 2308(b), and for a post-judgment subpoena that motion is made in the court that issued the underlying judgment. Escalation costs money, though, and the practical calculus is the same one that governs the whole article: it is far cheaper to serve two well-aimed subpoenas than to litigate contempt against a garnishee who never had the information in the first place.
Why both of those are locate problems. A restraining notice and an information subpoena are only as good as the entity you serve, and New York gives you no statewide asset registry to query – you serve institutions you can name. Blanket-serving every bank in the borough is expensive, exposed under the certification rule, and burns the two-per-year restraint allowance. Establishing where the debtor banks, draws income, and would hold a recorded deed comes first; that is the whole premise of judgment debtor location work.
What New York Protects: EIPA and the Exemption Tiers
The reason a technically valid restraint can still yield nothing.
A restraint is not money yet: the CPLR 5222-a exemption clock
Freezing an account and collecting from it are two different events, and CPLR 5222-a is the procedure in between – the part of New York practice that decides whether a restraint ever yields a dollar. Anyone issuing a 5222 restraint against a natural person’s bank account, the creditor’s attorney included, must serve the bank with the notice, a copy of it, an exemption notice and two exemption claim forms with the creditor-side and bank-side address blocks already completed. Omit them and there is no restraint at all: the statute renders the restraining notice void and directs the bank not to restrain the account. A sheriff levying under CPLR 5232 carries the same obligation.
Then the clock runs against the creditor. Within 2 business days the bank mails the forms to the debtor’s last known address; the debtor has 20 days from that postmark to return a signed claim, and 8 days later the bank releases the account and the restraint is deemed void unless the creditor has objected by moving under CPLR 5240 inside the same window. At the hearing the executed claim form is prima facie evidence that the funds are exempt, and the burden of proof sits on the judgment creditor; sitting on proof of a wholly exempt account for more than 7 days is deemed bad faith and exposes the creditor to costs, fees, damages and up to $1,000 under CPLR 5222-a(g). Silence is no safer, because failure to return the form is expressly not a waiver – a notice mailed to a stale address buys a restraint that can be unwound later rather than a closed file.
The Exempt Income Protection Act made New York bank accounts hard to sweep
New York’s bank-account protections are among the strongest in the country, and they operate automatically – the bank applies them before the creditor ever hears about it. Two separate floors sit in front of a restrained account. First, under CPLR 5205(l), if direct deposits or electronic payments reasonably identifiable as statutorily exempt payments – Social Security, SSI, veterans’ benefits, public assistance, workers’ compensation, unemployment, pensions, railroad retirement, child support – hit the account during the 45 days before the restraining notice or execution was served, a set dollar amount is exempt outright and the bank may not restrain it. Second, and independently, an execution or restraint cannot apply to an amount equal to or less than the greater of 240 times the federal minimum hourly wage or 240 times the New York minimum hourly wage under Labor Law section 652 in effect when the earnings are payable.
Both of those figures are moving targets, and this is where competitor guides most often go stale. The dollar amounts printed in CPLR 5205 and 5206 are base figures that the Superintendent of Financial Services must adjust every 3 years for inflation, rounded to the nearest $25, under CPLR 5205(l)(3) and CPLR 5253. The current amounts effective April 1, 2024 – and in force until the next adjustment on April 1, 2027 – are published by the New York State Department of Financial Services: the direct-deposit account exemption under CPLR 5205(l) is $3,425, not the $2,500 the statute text still recites. The minimum-wage floor moves separately and regionally: the New York State Department of Labor sets the minimum wage at $17 an hour in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester as of January 1, 2026, and $16 for the remainder of the state – so 240 times that rate is $4,080 downstate and $3,840 upstate. A creditor who budgets a levy against an account holding $4,000 in Nassau County is planning to collect nothing.
Homestead is tiered by county, and that tier list is unusual
CPLR 5206 does not give New York one homestead number. It gives three, sorted by county, and the county list is written into the statute: the highest tier covers Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, Richmond, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam; a middle tier covers Dutchess, Albany, Columbia, Orange, Saratoga, and Ulster; the lowest covers every remaining county. As adjusted and published by the Department of Financial Services effective April 1, 2024, those amounts are $204,825, $170,700, and $102,400 respectively – measured in value above liens and encumbrances, on a property owned and occupied as a principal residence. The lien still attaches to any surplus above the exemption, and CPLR 5206(e) lets a judgment creditor bring a special proceeding for the sale of a homestead worth more than the exempt amount. The county tier is the difference between a Putnam County house with equity being a realistic target and an identical house upstate being effectively out of reach, which is why identifying the county of the debtor’s residence is a substantive fact and not a formality.
Personal property, wages, and the medical-debt carve-out
The personal-property list in CPLR 5205(a) is likewise stated in base dollars and adjusted on the same three-year cycle: as adjusted for the current period, one motor vehicle above liens and encumbrances is exempt to $5,500, tools of trade and professional instruments to $4,075, and jewelry and art to $1,325, with a wildcard of the same amount in personal property, bank account, or cash available only if no homestead exemption is claimed. CPLR 5205(d)(2) separately exempts 90 percent of the debtor’s earnings for personal services rendered in the 60 days before, and at any time after, an income execution is delivered to the sheriff. And CPLR 5231(b)(iv) carries a carve-out that surprises out-of-state creditors. Its operative words are that “no amount shall be imposed in judgments arising from a medical debt action brought by a hospital licensed under article twenty-eight of the public health law or a health care professional authorized under title eight of the education law.” In practice a New York medical judgment cannot be collected out of wages by income execution. We do not opine on how any of this applies to a given file – that is your counsel’s call, and our companion page on New York asset exemptions and creditors lays out the landscape – but the exemption structure is exactly why identifying which asset and which county is worth doing before a levy is paid for.
Wages, Sheriffs, and the New York City Marshal
The two-step income execution and the officer who actually levies.
The income execution is a two-step process, not a garnishment order. Under CPLR 5231(b), an income execution for installments of not more than 10 percent of the debtor’s gross income is issued and delivered to the sheriff of the county where the debtor resides – or, if the debtor is a nonresident, the county where the debtor is employed. Gross income here includes overtime and commissions. Layered on top is the federal-style disposable-earnings limit: nothing may be withheld in a week unless disposable earnings exceed the greater of 30 times the federal or 30 times the New York minimum hourly wage, and the amount withheld may not exceed 25 percent of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed that 30-times floor, whichever is less. If support deductions under CPLR 5241 or 5242 already take 25 percent or more, an ordinary income execution takes nothing.
The sequence is the part most creditors get wrong. The sheriff first serves a copy on the judgment debtor within 20 days of delivery, giving them the chance to pay the installments voluntarily. Only if the debtor then fails to pay for 20 days – or the sheriff cannot serve the debtor within the first 20 days – does the sheriff levy by serving the execution on the employer. That built-in delay is precisely why the employer identification has to be right at the outset: a stale employer means the second service lands nowhere and the whole cycle restarts. Finding a current, corroborated employer is one of the most requested pieces of our work, and the mechanics are covered on our New York wage garnishment laws page.
Who levies depends on where you are. Outside New York City, executions go to the county sheriff. Inside the five boroughs, New York has an institution almost no other state has: the city marshal – a mayoral appointee who is an officer of the Civil Court, supervised by the Appellate Division and the city’s Department of Investigation. Section 1609 of the New York City Civil Court Act splits a marshal’s authority into a permanent half and a temporary one, and creditors conflate the two constantly.
Section 1609(1)(a) is permanent. A marshal’s authority extends throughout the city of New York, and the law governing sheriffs’ powers, duties and liabilities as to the taking and restitution of property applies to marshals. That grant is not on a clock – the version of subdivision 1 that takes over when the temporary paragraph lapses reproduces it word for word. Section 1609(1)(b) is the half that sunsets, currently in force until June 30, 2028 under Chapter 137 of the Laws of 2026 (A10338, signed June 26, 2026, extending section 3 of Chapter 455 of the Laws of 1997). It is also narrower than it is usually described: (1)(b) applies the city sheriff’s money-judgment powers to marshals only for money judgments rendered by any family court, money judgments entered in any supreme court, or judgments docketed with the clerk of any county – not to those powers at large. Both familiar limits sit inside that same temporary paragraph: city marshals have no power to levy upon or sell real property, and no power of arrest. So a bank levy or an execution against personal property in Queens can go to a marshal; an execution against the debtor’s Queens house has to run through the sheriff.
Poundage is a New York cost line most creditors forget, and it is not uniform. Under CPLR 8012(b), the enforcement officer earns poundage for collecting money by execution. In the counties within the City of New York the rate is 5 percent of the sum collected, flat. In every other county it is 5 percent on the first $250,000 collected and 3 percent on the remainder. There is a sharper edge in CPLR 8012(b)(2): where a settlement is made after a levy has been made by service of an execution, the officer is entitled to poundage on the judgment or the settlement amount, whichever is less – so a creditor who levies and then settles cheap still owes a percentage. On a large upstate collection the sliding scale is meaningfully cheaper than the flat city rate, which is one more reason the county matters as a fact and not a formality.
The Clock and the Interest: New York’s Numbers
What a New York judgment is worth, and for how long.
Post-judgment interest is two different rates
Both New York post-judgment rates sit in CPLR 5004(a). The default is 9 percent per annum; the 2021 amendment to that subdivision added a second, much lower rate for an action arising out of a consumer debt where a natural person is a defendant, which is 2 percent per annum. That applies both to judgments entered on or after the amendment’s effective date and to the unpaid portion of consumer judgments entered before it. “Consumer debt” is then defined, in CPLR 5004(b), as an obligation of a natural person arising from a transaction primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. The practical consequences run through the rest of Article 52: because the rate can change mid-enforcement, CPLR 5222 requires the creditor to issue an amended restraining notice stating the date the new rate applies, and CPLR 5230 requires the execution to specify the applicable rate. A commercial judgment against a corporate debtor accrues at 9 percent; a judgment on a defaulted store card against an individual accrues at 2 percent. Getting that wrong on the face of the paper is a defect the debtor’s counsel will find.
10 years for the lien, 20 for the judgment
Docketing is the step people skip. Under CPLR 5018, the clerk dockets a money judgment on filing of the judgment-roll, and a transcript of that docket can be filed with the clerk of any other county in the state, where it then has the same effect as a judgment entered in that county’s supreme court. That matters because of CPLR 5203(a): docketing with the clerk of the county where real property is located makes any later transfer by the debtor ineffective against the judgment creditor – the lien runs 10 years from filing of the judgment-roll. A judgment docketed only in Kings County does nothing to a house the debtor owns in Ulster County. Multiply that by a debtor with property in two or three counties and the docketing map becomes a real research question.
How that docketing step compares with the recording and levy systems other states use is set out on our judgment lien guide by state. The 10-year lien and the judgment’s life are not the same clock. Under CPLR 5014, a creditor can bring an action on the judgment once 10 years have elapsed since first docketing – and may commence that renewal action during the year before the 10 years run – producing a renewal judgment whose lien takes effect when the original lien expires. If the debtor has since left the state, the destination runs its own clock and its own remedies – New Hampshire, for one, is a different enforcement regime entirely (see New Hampshire judgment collection). Behind both sits CPLR 211(b): a money judgment is presumed paid and satisfied 20 years after the party recovering it was first entitled to enforce it, and that presumption is conclusive except against someone who made a written, signed acknowledgment or a payment within the 20 years. New York’s own statutory consumer notice says it plainly – CPLR 306-d makes the plaintiff supply, and the clerk mail, a plain-language warning to a consumer defendant that “once entered, a judgment is good and can be used against you for twenty years.”
The Consumer Credit Fairness Act narrowed the front end
If your New York judgment came out of a consumer credit transaction, the Consumer Credit Fairness Act reshaped what could be obtained in the first place. CPLR 214-i cut the limitations period for an action arising out of a consumer credit transaction to 3 years, and – the part that changed collection economics most – provided that once the limitations period expires, no subsequent payment, written or oral affirmation, or other activity on the debt revives or extends it. Partial-payment revival, long a staple of aged-debt collection, is gone in New York for those accounts. CPLR 306-d layered on the additional clerk-mailed notice in English and Spanish, and the pleading and default-judgment requirements tightened alongside it. The direct effect on enforcement is that default judgments in consumer matters are more vulnerable to being vacated, so confirming that the person you are about to restrain is genuinely the named judgment debtor is worth more here than in most states. If the underlying timing is your question rather than the enforcement, our page on the New York debt collection statute of limitations covers that ground.
Judgments From Elsewhere, Turnover, and Closing Out
The three places a New York enforcement file goes sideways.
Bringing an out-of-state judgment into New York, and the default-judgment trap
New York’s version of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act is CPLR Article 54, and it carries a limitation that catches creditors from other states almost every time. CPLR 5401 defines a “foreign judgment” eligible for the fast filing route as any judgment entitled to full faith and credit in New York except one obtained by default in appearance, or by confession of judgment. Since a large share of collection judgments in every state are defaults, the streamlined path is simply unavailable for many of them. Where it is available, CPLR 5402(a) requires an authenticated copy to be filed with the office of any county clerk within 90 days of the date of authentication, together with an affidavit stating that the judgment was not obtained by default or confession, that it is unsatisfied, the amount remaining unpaid, that enforcement has not been stayed – and setting forth the judgment debtor’s name and last known address. Once filed, the clerk treats it like a supreme court judgment and it is enforced the same way.
Two things follow. First, a creditor holding an out-of-state default judgment generally has to bring a new action in New York on that judgment – often by motion for summary judgment in lieu of complaint under CPLR 3213 – which means the debtor has to be served, and service in turn requires a current address rather than the one printed on a judgment from several years ago. Second, even the smooth Article 54 route asks you to swear to the debtor’s last known address in the affidavit. Both roads lead back to the same factual question. When a debtor has crossed a line into New Jersey, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania – or into New York from one of them – the record trail has to be rebuilt in the new state before either road opens. The 90-day authentication clock also means the locate should be finished before the certified copy is ordered, not after.
Turnover proceedings when someone else is holding the money
Restraining a bank account only preserves the status quo; it does not move money to the creditor. Where property is held by a third party, or a third party owes the debtor a debt, CPLR 5225(b) and CPLR 5227 provide the special proceeding that compels a turnover, and CPLR 5225(a) covers property in the debtor’s own possession. That machinery is also how a judgment reaches interests that are not cash at all – a membership interest in a New York limited liability company, shares in a closely held corporation, a receivable owed by a customer, or funds held by an escrow agent. In each case the proceeding requires naming who holds what – and a creditor who cannot name the holder cannot bring it, however large the judgment.
Small-claims leverage, and closing the file properly
Judgments out of the New York City small claims part carry a remedy that surprises business debtors. Under section 1812 of the New York City Civil Court Act, where a recorded small claims judgment arose from the judgment debtor’s trade or business or a repeated course of dealing, at least 2 other unsatisfied recorded small claims judgments exist against that debtor on the same basis, and the debtor failed to satisfy the judgment within 30 days after receiving a statutory notice, the creditor may sue for treble the amount of the unsatisfied judgment plus reasonable counsel fees and costs. The notice must be served the way a summons is served or by certified mail, return receipt requested – so once again the address decides whether the remedy is even available, and inability to pay is a defense the debtor can raise.
At the other end, CPLR 5020 requires the creditor who has been paid to execute and file a satisfaction-piece with the proper clerk, with a statutory penalty running to the debtor if the deadline is missed. It is one more step that stalls when nobody knows where the debtor now lives.
The New York Enforcement Tools, and What Each One Needs
Every remedy in Article 52 has a factual prerequisite.
| Remedy | Statute | What it reaches | The New York fact it turns on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restraining notice | CPLR 5222 | Freezes debts owed to and property held for the debtor by the garnishee served; 1 year; up to twice the amount due. | The named bank or garnishee. 2 per year, max, on a natural person’s account. |
| Information subpoena | CPLR 5224 | Written questions answered under oath in 7 days; third-party version needs the reasonable-belief certification. | A person or entity you can show reasonably holds asset information. |
| Income execution | CPLR 5231 | Up to 10 percent of gross income, subject to the federal disposable-earnings cap. | The current employer and the county where the debtor resides. |
| Property execution and levy | CPLR 5230, 5232 | Bank accounts and personal property, levied by a sheriff or a New York City marshal. | The account or asset, and the right enforcement officer for that county. |
| Docketed judgment lien | CPLR 5018, 5203 | Real property in the county of docketing, for 10 years from filing of the judgment-roll. | Every county where the debtor owns or may acquire real property. |
| Turnover proceeding | CPLR 5225, 5227 | Compels the debtor or a third party holding the debtor’s property to turn it over. | Proof of who holds what – normally built from subpoena answers and records. |
| Locate and asset research | Our role | Debtor located, employer and banking relationship identified, recorded property mapped by county. Records | What you already know, plus your permissible purpose. |
Article 52 is drafted as though the creditor already holds every one of those facts. Nowhere does it say how you learn which bank carries the account, which payroll cuts the checks, or which county clerk would be holding the deed – the statute simply conditions each remedy on knowing, then moves quickly once you do. New York enforcement files rarely stall on the law; they stall in that silence. Closing it with a lawful asset search for judgment collection is what we do before the first piece of paper is issued.
Where a New York File Actually Stalls
The six situations that bring judgment creditors to us.
Both Restraints Spent on Guesses
CPLR 5222(c) allows 2 per year against an individual’s banking-institution account. Serving the wrong institution twice ends the year with nothing frozen.
The Exemption Notice Went Nowhere
Under CPLR 5222-a the bank mails the claim forms to the debtor’s last known address. A dead address does not end the exemption – it defers the fight.
No GBL 601 Certification
A third-party information subpoena served by a private creditor without the reasonable-belief certification is deemed null and void. The bank simply does not answer.
The Account Sat Under the EIPA Floor
The automatic floor is 240 times the minimum wage, and the minimum wage is regional. A levy downstate has $4,080 of headroom to clear before it collects.
The Marshal Could Not Touch the House
NYCCCA 1609(1)(b) denies city marshals any power to levy on or sell real property. Realty in the five boroughs has to go back to the sheriff.
The Foreign Judgment Was a Default
CPLR 5401 shuts default and confession judgments out of the Article 54 filing route, so the creditor sues again in New York – and has to serve the debtor.
How We Work a New York Matter
Confirm, locate, research assets, document.
Confirm the Judgment Debtor
Identity resolved against the name on the docket, so a restraint or execution is aimed at the right person.
Locate and Fix the County
A current, corroborated address – and the county that governs the homestead tier, the sheriff, and where to docket.
Research Employer and Assets
Employment and banking relationships, recorded real property by county, vehicles, and business interests.
Document It for Counsel
Each finding sourced, with an honest confidence note, in a form your attorney can act on and defend.
Our Role: Find and Verify
The factual layer, lawfully developed.
There is one kind of request we decline outright. If the person named is a victim of abuse, has fled a violent household, or is protected by an order of protection or a no-contact order, we will not take the file and we will tell you why: an address is not a neutral fact when somebody has taken steps to keep it private, and a docketed New York judgment does not entitle anyone to undo that. New York already legislates in that direction inside Article 52 – CPLR 5222-a makes service of the exemption notice and claim forms a condition of a restraint, and provides that failure to serve them together with the restraining notice renders the restraining notice void. The statute assumes the person on the other end has protections that survive the judgment. So do we. Where safety is genuinely in issue the route is counsel and, where appropriate, the court.
The legal decisions belong to you and your counsel: which Article 52 remedy fits, whether to restrain or subpoena first, how to handle an exemption claim under CPLR 5222-a when the debtor returns the claim form, whether a turnover proceeding is worth bringing, and how to domesticate the judgment if the debtor has moved. We do not make those calls and we do not advise on them. What we supply is the factual layer underneath: confirming the debtor’s identity against the judgment, developing and corroborating a current location, identifying employment and banking relationships, and researching recorded real property, vehicles, and business interests through public records and lawfully licensed data accessed under a permissible purpose. Where the target is the account rather than the person, our guide to finding a judgment debtor’s bank account explains what is lawfully knowable and what is not.
The boundaries are firm and we state them plainly. Article 52 hands each of those acts to a named actor – the creditor’s attorney issues the restraining notice, the sheriff or a New York City marshal levies, the county clerk dockets. We are none of them. Nobody here holds a New York private investigator’s licence, and this is not a law firm or a collection agency. We do not restrain accounts, levy, serve executions, record liens, garnish wages, or approach a debtor for money. We never pretext, never impersonate, and never access private financial account contents or balances – what we produce is what the records lawfully show, sourced, with a candid note on how current and how confirmed each item is, and an explicit flag when a trail has gone cold. Results are general public-records research, not a consumer report, and we are not a consumer reporting agency; nothing we deliver may be used for an FCRA-covered employment, tenant, or credit decision. We also do not promise that a judgment will be collected – only that the enforcement your counsel files will be aimed at something we verified rather than something you assumed.
Who We Help Collect
For New York judgment creditors and their counsel.
Judgment Creditors
Docketed in one county, equity in another
Collection Counsel
Signing 5222 restraints as officers of the court
Small-Claims Winners
NYC Civil Court awards and NYCCCA 1812 treble claims
New York Landlords
Arrears and damage judgments out of Housing Court
Trade Creditors
Reaching an LLC interest by CPLR 5225 turnover
Out-of-State Creditors
Article 54 filings and the default-judgment exclusion
Whoever holds the judgment, the next move in New York is the same: put a name, an address, a county, an employer, and a banking relationship in front of counsel so the restraining notice, information subpoena, or income execution is aimed rather than guessed. Our skip tracing services do that research lawfully and document it for your file. Tell us what you have and your permissible purpose; a first read typically comes back within 24 hours.
Our Commitment
We give a New York judgment the factual foundation Article 52 assumes you already have – the debtor confirmed against the docket, a corroborated current address and county, employment and banking relationships identified, and recorded property mapped county by county – each finding sourced with an honest confidence note, so the restraining notice, information subpoena, or income execution your counsel issues lands on something real. We find and verify the facts; the procedure, the exemption analysis, and every legal step stay with you and your attorney. Working New York judgment files since 2004 out of county clerk dockets and lawfully licensed data. No enquiry here begins with a false identity, nothing is taken from inside a private account, and none of it stands in for a New York attorney’s read of your matter.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long is a judgment good for in New York?
Two clocks run. Under CPLR 211(b) a money judgment is presumed paid and satisfied 20 years after the creditor was first entitled to enforce it, and that presumption is conclusive unless the debtor made a written signed acknowledgment or a payment within the period. The real-property lien is shorter: under CPLR 5203(a) it runs 10 years from filing of the judgment-roll in the county where the judgment is docketed. CPLR 5014 lets a creditor bring an action on the judgment for a renewal judgment, and that action may be commenced during the year before the 10 years expire. The lien of the renewal judgment takes effect when the original 10 years run out.
Can a New York creditor freeze a bank account without going back to court?
Yes, and that is what makes New York distinctive. CPLR 5222 lets a restraining notice be issued by the clerk of the court or by the attorney for the judgment creditor as an officer of the court – no motion and no order. Served on a bank, it binds that bank for one year or until the judgment is satisfied or vacated, and reaches up to twice the amount due. The limits are real: leave of court is required for a second notice to the same person on the same judgment, and no more than 2 restraining notices in any year may be served on a natural person’s banking-institution account. A restraining notice also cannot be served on the employer where what is sought is wages.
How much of a paycheck can be taken in New York?
An income execution under CPLR 5231 is capped at 10 percent of the debtor’s gross income, including overtime and commissions. A separate disposable-earnings limit applies on top: nothing may be withheld for a week unless disposable earnings exceed 30 times the greater of the federal or New York minimum hourly wage, and the withholding may not exceed 25 percent of disposable earnings or the amount above that 30-times floor, whichever is less. If support deductions already take 25 percent or more, an ordinary income execution takes nothing. And CPLR 5231(b)(iv) bars any income-execution withholding on a judgment arising from a medical debt action brought by a licensed hospital or health care professional.
What is an information subpoena, and how fast must it be answered?
It is the written-question asset-discovery device in CPLR 5224. It can be served by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, with a copy and original of the questions and a prepaid return envelope. The recipient must answer each question separately and fully, in writing under oath, and return the answers with the original questions within 7 days. No witness fee is owed. When a private judgment creditor serves one on anyone other than the debtor, it must carry a signed certification of reasonable belief referencing CPLR 5224 and General Business Law section 601; without that certification the subpoena is deemed null and void.
How much money is protected in a New York debtor’s bank account?
Under the Exempt Income Protection Act the bank applies protection automatically. If direct deposits reasonably identifiable as statutorily exempt payments – Social Security, veterans’ benefits, unemployment, pensions and similar – were made in the 45 days before service, CPLR 5205(l) exempts a set amount outright; the Department of Financial Services set that at $3,425 effective April 1, 2024. Separately, an execution cannot apply to an amount at or below 240 times the greater of the federal or New York minimum hourly wage – which, at the state rates in effect for 2026, is $4,080 in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester and $3,840 elsewhere in the state.
Does a New York judgment automatically lien the debtor’s house?
Only in the county where it is docketed. Under CPLR 5018 the clerk dockets a money judgment on filing of the judgment-roll, and a transcript of that docket may be filed with the clerk of any other county, where it then carries the same effect as a judgment entered in that county. CPLR 5203(a) then makes a transfer by the debtor ineffective against the creditor for 10 years. So a judgment docketed only in New York County does nothing to a property in Erie or Ulster County until a transcript is filed there. Whether equity is actually reachable also turns on the county homestead tier in CPLR 5206.
Who actually levies in New York – the sheriff or a city marshal?
Outside New York City, the county sheriff. Inside the five boroughs, New York also has city marshals: mayoral appointees who are officers of the Civil Court. Section 1609 of the New York City Civil Court Act has two halves that are routinely conflated. Subdivision 1(a) is permanent – a marshal’s authority extends citywide, and the law on sheriffs’ powers as to the taking and restitution of property applies to marshals. Subdivision 1(b) is the temporary half, in force until June 30, 2028 under Chapter 137 of the Laws of 2026, and it is (1)(b) that applies the city sheriff’s money-judgment powers to marshals – only for money judgments of the family court, money judgments of the supreme court, or judgments docketed with a county clerk. The two limits sit inside (1)(b) as well: no power to levy upon or sell real property, and no power of arrest. A bank levy in Brooklyn can go to a marshal; an execution against a Brooklyn house cannot.
What do you supply, and how quickly?
A corroborated current location for the judgment debtor where one is locatable, the county that governs docketing and the homestead tier, identified employment and banking relationships, and a documented read on recorded real property, vehicles, and business interests – each finding sourced, with identity confirmed against the judgment and completeness noted honestly. For a workable request a first read typically comes back quickly. We do not restrain, levy, garnish, or advise on New York procedure; we hand your attorney verified targets so the Article 52 paperwork is aimed rather than guessed.
Aim Your New York Enforcement
Article 52 gives your counsel fast, powerful remedies – and every one of them needs a named bank, a current employer, or the right county. Tell us about the debtor, what you already know, and your permissible purpose, and we will locate them and research their recorded assets, documented for your attorney. Contact us to get started.
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