Collection Procedures in Georgia   Tags: georgia_law, remedies  

Collection procedures are means for creditors to obtain payment from debtors. Winning a lawsuit for one’s client is not always the end of a lawyer’s work. Many lawyers will likely encounter a situation where they have a judgment, but the judgment debtor is unwilling to pay. It is precisely this situation which collection procedures were created to deal with. There are principally three collection devices that are used in Georgia which include attachment, garnishment and execution and levy. The goal of this bibliography is to provide a basic understanding and a starting point for researching and utilizing these different collection procedures in Georgia.

Attachment is the seizing of a person's property to secure a judgment or to be sold in satisfaction of a judgment. In Georgia, the main form of attachment used is the provision attachment. A provisional attachment is a prejudgment attachment in which the debtor's property is seized so that if the creditor ultimately prevails, the creditor will be assured of recovering on the judgment through the sale of the seized property.

Garnishment is a judicial proceeding in which a creditor (or potential creditor) asks the court to order a third party who is indebted to or is bailee for the debtor to turn over to the creditor any of the debtor's property (such as wages or bank accounts) held by that third party.

Execution and levy is a post-judgment device where the court issues a writ of execution (commonly referred to as a fieri facias or fi fa) which authorizes the sheriff to seize and sale property of the debtor to satisfy the amount owed on account of the judgment. Recording of the fi fa in the general execution docket in the county where the defendant owns property creates a lien on all real property in the county.

In order to properly utilize these collection procedures it is necessary to understand the proper process, limitations and other qualifications on using the collection device. Usually pertinent questions will arise that need to be addressed such as: when may a collection procedure be brought, what grounds are sufficient to invoke the collection procedure, what property is subject to the collection procedure? Each of these procedures is governed by statutes and thus many times reading the relevant statutes will answer most questions. Secondary materials provide an easier to understand and sometimes more thorough explanation on how to use the different collections procedures.

Andy Adams - Fall 2007 - Remedies; Georgia Law

Bibliographies on this Web site were prepared for educational purposes by law students as part of Nancy P. Johnson's Advanced Legal Research course. The Law Library does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided. Thorough legal research requires a researcher to update materials from date of publication; please note the semester and year the bibliography was prepared.