Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 18 § 18.847 — Notice

Notice to debtor of garnishment account review. The notice given by a financial institution to a debtor under ORS 18.785 (3) must be in substantially the following form: ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________ ______________________ ______________________ (Name, address of financial institution) IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR ACCOUNT Date: _________ Notice to: _________ Account Number: _________ Why am I receiving this notice? On _____ [date on which garnishment order was served], ______ [name of financial institution] received a garnishment order from a court to garnish funds in your account. The amount of the garnishment order was for $_____ [amount of garnishment order]. We are sending you this notice to let you know what we have done in response to the garnishment order. What is garnishment? Garnishment is a legal process that allows a creditor to remove funds from your bank/credit union account to satisfy a debt that you have not paid. In other words, if you owe money to a person or company, they can obtain a court order directing your bank/credit union to take money out of your account to pay off your debt. If this happens, you cannot use that money in your account. What has happened to my account? An amount specified by the Oregon Judicial Department is protected by law from garnishment under ORS 18.785. As of the date of this notice, that amount is _________. This means you have access to up to this amount from any and all of the accounts you have with us. If you owe a debt that arises out of a child support, spousal support or a money award that includes restitution, the protected amount specified by the Oregon Judicial Department does not apply. If your accounts with us have a total amount that exceeds the amount the Oregon Judicial Department has specified, we must research your account to determine whether certain payments you might have received were made to your accounts in the previous two months. The amount of those payments might be protected from garnishment. ___ (check if applicable) On _________ [date of account review], we researched your account and identified that one or more payments identified by ORS 18.785 (2)(c)(B) have been deposited in the last two months (see below for a list of qualifying payments). In most cases, these payments are protected from garnishment. As required by state and federal regulations, therefore, we have established a “protected amount” of funds that will remain available to you and that will not be frozen or removed from your account in response to the garnishment order. (Conditional paragraph if funds have been frozen) ___ (check if applicable) Your account contained additional money that may not be protected from garnishment. As required by law, we have placed a hold on or removed these funds in the amount of $______ [amount frozen] and may have to turn these funds over to your creditor as directed by the garnishment order. The chart below summarizes this information about your account(s): ACCOUNT SUMMARY AS OF ______ [DATE OF ACCOUNT REVIEW] Amount Account                        in                                 Amount Number                        Account                      Protected _____                            _____                          _____ _____                            _____                          _____ Amount Subject to Garnish- ment (now                    Garnish- frozen/                          ment Fee removed)                      Charged _____                            _____ _____                            _____ (If the account holder has multiple accounts, use a separate row for each account) Please note that these amount(s) may be affected by deposits or withdrawals after the protected amount was calculated on _________ (date of garnishment account review). Do I need to do anything to access my protected funds? You may use the protected amount of money in your account as you normally would. There is nothing else you need to do to make sure that the protected amount is safe. Who garnished my account? The creditor who obtained a garnishment order against you is _________ (name of creditor). What types of benefit payments are protected from garnishment? In most cases, you have protections from garnishment if the funds in your account include one or more of the following benefit payments: •     Social Security benefits •     Supplemental Security Income benefits •     Veterans’ benefits •     Railroad retirement benefits •     Railroad Unemployment Insurance benefits •     Civil Service Retirement System benefits •     Federal Employees Retirement System benefits •     Payments from a public or private retirement plan as defined in ORS 18.358 •     Public assistance or medical assistance, as defined in ORS 414.025, from the State of Oregon or an agency of the State of Oregon •     Unemployment comp