My property owners association placed a bank levy on my account for 30 days. This freeze will prevent me from paying my mortgage, phone bill, loans, etc. I also work on the road and now have zero access to funds. This may cause me to lose my job. I just found out today. I can not pay the lump sum they are requesting. What should I do?
Answer
A levy does not occur until you lost a lawsuit. It is a way of collecting a court judgment you already lost, either by not appearing or by trial.
You should do now what you should have done BEFORE the original suit, and that's see a lawyer. A lawyer will likely have fewer things they can do now to help you than when you should have gotten counsel.
Answer
As a practical matter, once the bank levy is in place, the bank has no choice but to freeze your account and turn over any funds in the accout to the HOA (home owner's association).
Refrain from depositing any money into that bank account immediately and see if you can get an online or out of state bank account.
See if you can use credit cards for funds or borrow money. If you can't, you can't. In such case, you can try contacting the attorney for the HOA and working out some kind of agreement and see if in return for making this agreement and making regular payments thereon, they will release some of the levied funds back to you. My guess is they won't but it never hurts to ask.
If I can give everyone just a little bit of advice, that would be to pay close attention to the red-flags when filing your taxes. I made the mistake on the recommendation of a friend to claim the home office to take home extra $400 last year. I got called into IRS headquarters, wound up paying a small fine, lost a days pay, and learned a very costly lesson that day.
ReplyDeleteWanda Hanson @ Tax Tiger