How to Collect a Judgment in New York: Wage Garnishment, Bank Restraints, Property Liens, What the Debtor Can Still Protect, and the Filing Mistake That Leaves a Judgment Worthless, From a Long Island Litigation Attorney (2026)

How do you collect a judgment in New York?

You collect a New York judgment by finding the debtor's money and taking it with the enforcement tools in CPLR Article 52, because the judge who signed the judgment will never lift a finger to get you paid. Winning the case gets you a piece of paper. Collecting is a second case, run by you, against a defendant who now has every reason to hide.

That surprises almost everyone who walks into my office with a judgment in hand. They expect a check. What they actually have is a right, good for 20 years under CPLR 211(b), to use the sheriff, the county clerk, the debtor's bank, and the debtor's employer against the debtor. In Nassau and Suffolk County the sheriff's civil bureau carries out executions. Inside New York City that work is done mostly by city marshals, with the sheriff available as well. The tools are the same statewide, so what I describe here applies whether the judgment came out of Nassau Supreme Court, Suffolk District Court, or Queens Civil Court.

The good news is that New York gives the creditor real leverage. Interest runs at 9% a year under CPLR 5004 on a commercial judgment, which is better than most investments and punishes a debtor who waits. The restraining notice, the income execution, and the real property lien are all powerful. The hard truth is that none of them matter if the debtor has no job, no account, and no real estate in their own name. I tell every client the same thing before we sue: a judgment against someone who cannot pay is an expensive certificate. The collectability check belongs at the start, not the end, and I cover how long a breach of contract case takes and what it costs before you ever get to this stage in how long a breach of contract lawsuit takes in New York.

Landlords holding a money judgment for back rent after an eviction use these exact same tools, and I explain how that judgment comes about in how long it takes to evict a tenant in New York.

What has to happen before you can enforce: entry, docketing, and the transcript of judgment

Before any enforcement device works, the judgment has to be entered and docketed by the clerk, and if you want it to reach the debtor's real estate it has to be docketed with the clerk of the county where that real estate is located. CPLR 5018 handles the mechanics, and this is where more judgments quietly fail than anywhere else.

Here is how it works. When a Supreme Court or County Court judgment is entered, the county clerk dockets it right away under CPLR 5018(a), and from that moment it is a lien on any real property the debtor owns in that county under CPLR 5203(a). A judgment from a lower court, meaning District Court on Long Island, City Court, or Civil Court in New York City, is different. It is not a lien on real property on its own. You have to get a transcript of judgment from the court that issued it and file that transcript with the county clerk, who then dockets it with the same effect as a Supreme Court judgment. Small claims judgments work the same way. If the debtor owns a house in Suffolk and the judgment is docketed only in Nassau, you have no lien on the Suffolk house until you file a transcript with the Suffolk County Clerk. CPLR 5018 lets you docket by transcript in as many counties as you want, and I do it in every county where the debtor plausibly owns anything.

Timing matters here. The lien runs 10 years from filing of the judgment roll under CPLR 5203(a), not 10 years from when you finally got around to docketing it. The sooner the transcript is filed the sooner you are ahead of the next creditor and the next refinance. A judgment that was entered but never docketed where the property is sitting is the single most common reason I see a creditor lose out when the debtor sells or refinances.

The steps to collect a New York judgment, in order

1. Demand payment and set the record (week 1). Send the debtor a written demand enclosing the judgment with interest computed at the CPLR 5004 rate. Some pay. Many do not, but the letter matters later because a written acknowledgment of the debt signed by the debtor restarts the 20 year period under CPLR 211(b).
2. Enter, docket, and transcript the judgment (weeks 1 to 2). Confirm the clerk has entered and docketed it under CPLR 5018. For a District, City, or Civil Court judgment, obtain the transcript and file it with the county clerk in every county where the debtor may own real estate. This is the step that creates the real property lien under CPLR 5203.
3. Find the money with information subpoenas (weeks 2 to 6). CPLR 5224 lets you serve written questions by certified mail on the debtor, the debtor's bank, employer, landlord, business partners, or anyone else you reasonably believe holds information that will help collect. Answers are due in writing, under oath, within seven days of receipt. A subpoena to a third party must carry the creditor's signed certification of that reasonable belief or it is void. The Department of Motor Vehicles can also tell you whether the debtor owns a registered vehicle.
4. Freeze the bank account with a restraining notice (same day you learn the bank). Under CPLR 5222 your attorney signs and serves a restraining notice on the bank. The bank must then hold the debtor's funds up to twice the judgment amount for one year or until the judgment is satisfied, whichever comes first, except the protected floor described below. The debtor also gets a copy and an exemption claim form. Serve the bank before the debtor knows you have found it.
5. Take the money by execution (weeks 4 to 12). A restraining notice freezes. It does not transfer. To get the funds you deliver an execution to the sheriff or marshal, who levies on the account, or you move under CPLR 5225 or 5227 for a turnover order directing the bank to pay you. Personal property such as vehicles, inventory, or equipment can be seized and sold at auction by the enforcement officer, with the lender on a financed vehicle paid first.
6. Garnish wages with an income execution (month 2 onward, then continuous). Under CPLR 5231 the sheriff serves the income execution on the debtor first. The debtor has 20 days to start paying the installments voluntarily. If the debtor does not, the sheriff serves the employer, who withholds the installments from each paycheck and remits them. Only one income execution is paid at a time; a second creditor waits in line in the order the executions were delivered to the sheriff.
7. Enforce against real estate (year 1 onward, usually as leverage). Once docketed, the judgment is a lien that gets paid when the debtor sells or refinances, because no title company will insure around it. Forcing a sale of a debtor's home by execution is possible but slow and expensive, and the homestead exemption comes off the top, so in my practice the lien usually does its work at the closing table rather than at a sheriff's auction.
8. Renew the lien and protect the judgment (year 10 and year 20). The real property lien expires 10 years after the judgment roll was filed. CPLR 5014 lets you bring an action to renew the judgment during the year before that 10 year mark, and the renewal judgment's lien picks up when the original lien expires. The judgment itself is presumed paid after 20 years under CPLR 211(b) unless the debtor paid or acknowledged the debt in writing within that period.
9. File the satisfaction-piece (within 20 days of full payment). When you are paid, CPLR 5020 requires you to execute and file a satisfaction-piece with the clerk within 20 days and mail a copy to the debtor within 10 days of filing. Miss it and the debtor can recover a $100 penalty on a judgment under $5,000 or $500 on a judgment of $5,000 or more.

How much does it cost to collect a judgment in New York?

Collecting a New York judgment typically costs between a few hundred dollars for a debtor with a known bank account and job, and several thousand dollars when the debtor has to be chased through subpoenas, turnover motions, and real estate. The largest single line item is usually the enforcement officer's poundage: under CPLR 8012(b) the sheriff keeps 5% of what is collected on the first $250,000 and 3% of anything above that outside New York City, and 5% of the sum collected within the city. On a $50,000 judgment collected through a sheriff's levy, that is $2,500 before you see a dollar.

Beyond poundage, the hard costs are modest. Each transcript of judgment and docketing carries a clerk's fee, information subpoenas cost postage and the certified mail return receipt, and a turnover motion carries the court's motion fee. The real variable is attorney time. New York follows the American Rule, so you bear your own legal fees unless a contract clause, a statute, or a sanctions order shifts them, and the judgment itself rarely includes post-judgment collection fees. In my practice, collection work is handled either on a flat fee for a defined set of steps, such as docketing plus restraining notice plus execution, or on a contingency percentage when the debtor is collectible but difficult. Which one makes sense depends on the size of the judgment and what the subpoenas turn up.

Here is the math that matters. A $50,000 commercial judgment earns $4,500 a year in interest at 9% under CPLR 5004. If collection takes 18 months, the debtor owes roughly $56,750 by the time the sheriff levies, and the poundage comes out of the debtor's money because the execution is for the judgment plus interest plus the officer's fees. On a consumer debt judgment the rate drops to 2%, so the same $50,000 earns $1,000 a year and the pressure of waiting is much lower for the debtor. Understand which rate your judgment carries before you decide how hard to push.

Can a creditor take my whole paycheck or empty my bank account in New York?

No. New York caps an income execution at 10% of gross wages, protects the first 240 times the minimum wage in a bank account, and exempts Social Security, pensions, retirement accounts, and a homestead worth up to $204,825 on Long Island and in New York City. A judgment creditor can make life uncomfortable. A judgment creditor cannot leave you with nothing.

Start with wages. CPLR 5231(b) allows an income execution for installments of not more than 10% of the debtor's gross income, and even that 10% is subject to two further limits: nothing can be withheld for any week in which disposable earnings are at or below 30 times the greater of the federal or New York minimum wage, and in no week can the deduction exceed 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above that 30 times threshold, whichever is less. The New York minimum wage is $17.00 an hour in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester as of January 1, 2026 and $16.00 in the rest of the state, so the protected floor is $510 a week downstate and $480 a week upstate. If child support or spousal support is already being deducted, the room for a judgment creditor shrinks by that amount. And since late 2022, no income execution at all can issue on a judgment arising from a medical debt action brought by a licensed hospital or health care professional.

Now the bank account. CPLR 5222(i) says a restraining notice does not reach an amount equal to or less than 240 times the greater of the federal or state minimum hourly wage. At $17.00 that is $4,080 on Long Island, and if the account holds 90% or less of that figure the restraint is void and the bank should not freeze it at all. Separately, under CPLR 5205(l), if exempt benefits like Social Security, SSI, public assistance, or pension payments were direct deposited within the 45 days before the restraint, a fixed amount is exempt regardless of the minimum wage math. The statute says $2,500, but that figure is adjusted every three years by the Department of Financial Services and has been $3,425 since April 1, 2024, with the next adjustment due April 1, 2027. Retirement accounts and 90% of personal service earnings are protected by CPLR 5205(c) and (d). The exemption adjustments also moved the motor vehicle exemption in CPLR 5205(a)(8) to $5,500 of equity, and the CPLR 5206 homestead exemption to $204,825 in the five boroughs, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam, $170,700 in Dutchess, Albany, Columbia, Orange, Saratoga, and Ulster, and $102,400 everywhere else.

If a bank restraint lands on your account, CPLR 5222-a gives you the exemption claim form with the restraining notice. You have 20 days from the postmark to return it to the bank and the creditor's attorney. If the creditor does not object within 8 days of your claim, the bank releases the money. If the creditor objects, the money is held for up to 21 days while the court decides, and the creditor carries the burden of proving the funds are not exempt. A creditor who ignores proof that funds are exempt is deemed to have acted in bad faith and owes your costs, attorney fees, actual damages, and up to $1,000. Finally, a medical debt judgment cannot be used to enter or enforce a property lien against your primary residence under CPLR 5201(b). I represent creditors and debtors in these fights, and the debtors who lose are almost always the ones who throw away the exemption form.

What if the debtor is an LLC with nothing in it, or moved out of state?

A judgment against a New York LLC reaches only the LLC's own assets, so if the company's account was drained the week before you won, your realistic paths are a turnover proceeding against whoever received the money, a claim under New York's Uniform Voidable Transactions Act in Article 10 of the Debtor and Creditor Law to unwind transfers made to defeat creditors, or a separate action to pierce the corporate veil against the owner personally. None of those is automatic and all of them cost money, which is why I push every business client to get a personal guaranty signed before the deal, not after the default. I cover what happens to creditors when the members shut the company down in how to dissolve an LLC in New York, and the short version is that members who take distributions ahead of known creditors can be made to give them back.

Information subpoenas are your best friend here. CPLR 5224 lets you question the LLC's bank about where the money went, its landlord about who pays the rent now, and its principal about every account he controls. The answers are under oath. A principal who lies on an information subpoena has handed you a contempt motion.

If the debtor moved to another state, your New York judgment is still valid, but you have to domesticate it where the debtor now lives by filing it under that state's version of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act before that state's sheriff will act on it. The reverse is also true: a judgment from another state against a New York resident is enforced here by filing it under CPLR Article 54, after which it is treated like a New York judgment. If the debtor simply moved from Nassau to Queens, you do not need any of that; you file a transcript with the Queens County Clerk under CPLR 5018 and the lien follows.

What slows collection down, and what speeds it up?

The two things that stop collection cold are a bankruptcy filing and a debtor with nothing in their own name. The moment a debtor files bankruptcy, the automatic stay under federal law halts every restraint, execution, and garnishment, and whether your judgment survives depends on the type of debt and the type of case. A judgment on an ordinary contract claim is often discharged. A judgment grounded in fraud or a support obligation generally is not. Short of bankruptcy, the common delays are exemption disputes that tie up a bank restraint for weeks, a debtor who changes jobs every time the income execution reaches the employer, and sheriff's offices that run weeks behind on executions. Nassau and Suffolk are both busy civil bureaus, and I plan on it.

What speeds collection up is information and sequencing. Know the bank and the employer before you serve anything, which usually means an information subpoena to the debtor's bank, a review of the check the debtor once wrote you, or a careful read of the discovery from the underlying case. Serve the restraining notice on the bank the same day you learn where the account is, and serve the debtor afterward, since CPLR 5222 only requires the debtor to receive a copy within four days. Docket the judgment in every county where the debtor owns or might inherit property. Pair the restraining notice with an execution so the freeze turns into a payment without a second trip. And keep the interest running in your letters. A debtor who sees the balance grow by 9% a year under CPLR 5004 and sees a lien that will block the next refinance frequently calls to settle, and a settlement check this year beats a perfect judgment collected in year six.

The mistakes that make a judgment worthless

The mistakes I see most are not exotic. They are paperwork, and each one hands the debtor a gift.

The first is failing to docket the judgment in the county where the debtor's real estate sits. A District Court judgment that never got transcripted to the county clerk under CPLR 5018 is not a lien on anything, and the debtor sells the house clean. The second is letting the 10 year lien in CPLR 5203 lapse without bringing the renewal action under CPLR 5014 during the tenth year. The third is sitting on a judgment for two decades and discovering that CPLR 211(b) presumes it paid, with no written acknowledgment or payment in the file to restart the clock. The fourth is restraining obviously exempt funds and ignoring the debtor's proof, which under CPLR 5222-a turns your collection effort into a judgment against you for fees, damages, and up to $1,000. The fifth is forgetting the satisfaction-piece. CPLR 5020 gives you 20 days after full payment to file it, and debtors who were squeezed for years enjoy collecting the $500 penalty when you forget.

On the debtor side, the single worst mistake is throwing away the exemption claim form, followed closely by ignoring the lawsuit in the first place. Most judgments in New York are default judgments against people who never answered, and a default can sometimes be vacated under CPLR 5015 if you move promptly with a real excuse and a real defense. If you are reading this because a restraint just hit your account, the 20 day exemption clock in CPLR 5222-a is already running.

The hard truth that ties all of this together: a judgment is a tool, not a result. Used quickly and docketed correctly, it collects. Left in a drawer, it is paper.