Is it a garnishment, a bank levy or a setoff?

SettleADebt — S_AZ PASS-04

Arizona ordinary money-judgment garnishment of bank-account funds

This pass establishes the statutory bank-garnishment sequence, the debtor’s objection and hearing gateway, and the federal automatic protection for qualifying benefit deposits. Four material issues remain held: the exact officially verified 2026 indexed Arizona account-exemption amount, the initiative’s application to particular older obligations and bank proceedings, disputed allocation or selection across accounts, and verification of the latest consolidated court-rule text.

Baseline: October 22, 2026, Pacific. Actual public-source access: October 27, 2026, Pacific. Individual source-opening times: UNKNOWN; no publication date or review timestamp is used as an opening clock.

This is the requested bank/non-earnings component. The unreviewed P03 report supplies no legal premise here. The P01 review row is preserved in the crosswalk below; neither that row nor the Arizona dossier is accepted through this pass.

Identifier and evidence conventions

Every S### below means S_AZ-P04-S###. Every C### means S_AZ-P04-C###. Full identifiers appear in the source and claim registers.

• Body read: responsive statutory, regulatory, judicial, order, or guidance text was actually retrieved and read.
• Index: a listing or link was read; the linked document is not thereby treated as read.
• Historical/version limited: actual text was read, but its date or subsequent amendment history limits reliance.
• Held: the missing evidence is identified; an unread source does not establish absence, permission, or an exemption.
• Inference: a stated conclusion drawn from the cited provisions, distinguished from their express wording.
• Private facts: none were obtained or adjudicated.

A. Substantive findings

1. The bank route concerns money owed or held at service, followed by a separate adjudication

Arizona’s non-earnings article treats cash, credit, and accounts as “monies.” It excludes earnings governed by the separate earnings article. A bank account is therefore not subjected to an employer withholding percentage merely because wages originally funded it. Current §12-1598.01 and the published decisions discussed below support that boundary; other applicable money exemptions remain available. C001–C004, C094.

For an ordinary judgment creditor, the route begins with an enforceable judgment and the written application required by §12-1572. The Superior Court clerk or justice of the peace issues the writ under §12-1571. The bond in §12-1573 addresses the situation before a judgment has been entered; its presence in the article does not create an ordinary postjudgment creditor-bond requirement. The current application form’s complete signature or affidavit fields were not retrieved, so this report does not turn the statute’s “written application” language into a blanket conclusion that no verification can be required by an applicable form or rule. C005–C008.

Service triggers restrictions on paying nonexempt money to the debtor. It does not itself establish the creditor’s right to receive all money in the account. The Arizona Supreme Court’s published Jackson decision rejected a lien arising merely from the underlying judgment and service of the bank garnishment. Section 12-1584 then provides the judgment and transfer stages. C009–C019, C046–C048. Definitions+3

2. Arizona’s account exemption is not the base figure repeated in an old table

The operative compilation of §33-1126(A)(9) contains a $5,000 base amount, a single-account/one-financial-institution limitation, and annual adjustment beginning January 1, 2024. The adjustment uses the specified August-to-August CPI measure and rounds upward to the nearest $100.

I did not verify an official notice, table, or published controlling determination establishing the exact 2026 adjusted amount. Accordingly:

E = the legally applicable, properly verified Arizona account exemption. Its exact 2026 dollar value remains held in this pass.

The posted court information sheet and forms index are not a substitute for that missing verification. Nor are the historical $150/$300 figures still appearing in portions of the garnishment article a current account-exemption calculation. C023–C024, C037–C038.

Section 12-1578(B) is consequential: a financial institution shall not withhold the amount exempt under §33-1126(A)(9), unless the court orders otherwise after a §12-1580 hearing. Thus, this report does not characterize the Arizona account exemption as wholly dependent on the debtor first filing a claim.

Each spouse has an exemption under §33-1121.01, which permits combining exemptions in the same property or using different exempt property. That does not prove that every jointly titled account automatically receives twice E, or that E can be repeated at every bank. The actual selection mechanism, competing selections, ownership, and repeated-writ application remain conditional. C015, C025–C030. Money benefits or proceeds; exception+3

3. The initiative and subsequent enactment chain do not decide every bank writ’s temporal branch

The following distinct events were established:

• Proposition 209’s commencement is identified as December 5, 2022 in the court’s operative administrative materials.
• Its §10 saving clause preserves pre-effective-date matured rights and duties, pre-effective-date contracts, and the specified interest-rate treatment of judgments based on earlier written agreements.
• Laws 2022, chapter 346 supplied a competing version of §33-1126 containing a tax-credit exemption.
• Laws 2025, chapter 111, §§3–4 reconciled the statutory versions while retaining the account-exemption/indexing language. Its §5 bankruptcy applicability clause concerns §33-1101’s homestead provision, not a newly stated universal bank-account transition rule.
• Approval of chapter 111 on May 2, 2025, and its September 26, 2025 general effective date are different events.

The published 2024 Arizona Creditors Bar Association decision rejected a facial challenge to the saving clause. It did not resolve the bank-account exemption’s application to every older contract, judgment, renewal, writ, or execution. Its discussion expressly distinguished the bank-execution subject from the wage-focused controversy before it. No wage temporal holding from P03 is imported here. C031–C039. azleg.gov+3

4. The objection clock runs from receipt of the answer; objection is not automatic release

Section 12-1580(A) uses receipt of the garnishee’s answer as the objection trigger. It requires a written objection/request for hearing and copies delivered to all parties when the request is filed. The statutory notice in §12-1596(C) allows a late request if the court accepts a good reason for the delay.

The hearing provisions distinguish:

• commencement within five days, excluding weekends and holidays;
• continuance for good cause;
• an outer ten-day provision unless the debtor requests the continuance; and
• court notice at least two days, excluding weekends and holidays, before the hearing.

The exact counting rules and any real deadline require the applicable current court rule, receipt/service facts, and calendar. The dated approved forms use “business days,” while one checklist uses the answer’s filing date in a creditor step. That checklist does not replace the statute’s receipt trigger. C040–C044, C062–C067.

An objection requires adjudication before the contested garnishment judgment. It does not, by itself, release all held funds, establish a general stay of the underlying judgment, or permit continued restraint of funds independently protected by §12-1578(B) or federal law. The 90-day release provision also has an express objection exception. C045–C050. Objection to garnishment or answer; hearing+3

5. Federal automatic protection and substantive benefit exemptions are separate protections

For an ordinary order subject to 31 CFR Part 212, the bank must review the account before taking action affecting its funds. The rule identifies qualifying federal direct deposits through specified payment coding. It does not cover every government payment, every private payment, or every transfer that originated as a benefit.

For a qualifying account:

P = the lesser of qualifying benefit deposits during the regulatory lookback period and the account balance when the review is performed.

The bank must preserve access to P without requiring the holder to file an exemption claim. The review is conducted separately for each account. The rule expressly tells the bank not to trace transfers between accounts for that automatic calculation.

Money above P may still be exempt under state law or substantive federal benefit law. Conversely, P is not a finding that all remaining money belongs to the judgment debtor or may immediately be remitted. C070–C090.

Section 212.4’s qualifying United States/state-child-support notice changes the bank’s regulatory procedure. It does not establish that every benefit is legally available to every governmental claimant. The underlying statutory exception must independently apply. C072, C091. ecfr.gov+4

6. Published judicial interpretations actually used

These are published opinions or official reproductions of published opinions. No unpublished memorandum decision is used as authority. A published opinion’s reference to another decision is not treated as fresh reading of that other decision.

Sources: S024–S032; exact URLs and pinpoints follow. law.justia.com+8

B. Complete source register

B1. Document-level records

Access notation for every row: October 27, 2026, by ordinary public web search/open or PDF-text retrieval. Exact source-opening time is UNKNOWN. “PDF index” is zero based. A printed page is not assigned where it was not established.

B2. S001 statutory section URL and pinpoint map

All rows below belong to the same compilation source S001; they are not counted as separate documents.

B3. Failed routes, genuine alternates, and precise remaining holds

C. Atomic claim and evidence register

Confidence codes: H-text = high confidence in the actual passage read, subject to its stated version and predicates; B = bounded judicial or interpretive conclusion; Held = evidence insufficient for the proposed application. These codes do not certify an actual person’s exemption or any source’s complete subsequent history.

C1. Actors, entry, service, hold, answer, and ownership

C2. State exemptions, amendments, and temporal application

C3. Objection, hearing, judgment, release, default, and remedies

C4. Court-rule and form distinctions

C5. Federal automatic review and substantive benefit protections

D. Conditional money models and fictional postures

Common safeguards for the arithmetic

These are fictional examples, not actual levy outcomes.

Unless changed expressly, assume:

• one individual owns the account;
• an ordinary consumer judgment and properly served bank writ are legally operative;
• the bank/account satisfies the relevant statutory definitions;
• no competing writ, security claim, support/tax exception, stay, or discharge has been established;
• service and review balances are stated separately, even when numerically equal;
• no fee is deducted unless expressly modeled; and
• an additional court judgment and its operative delivery are still required for creditor payment under Arizona law.

E is unresolved. Any use of E assumes the applicable state-law branch and a valid selection have first been established. The assumptions do not resolve the Proposition209 saving clause.

All calculations use U.S. dollars and two decimal places. The examples contain no fractional-cent result requiring a rounding choice. The statutory annual exemption rounding is a separate issue.

Model 1 — State exemption below/above boundary, without an invented 2026 cap

Inputs

• AccountA is the account validly selected for the applicable state exemption.
• No qualifying Part212 direct deposit occurred in its lookback period: Q=$0.00.
• Bank balance at service equals balance at review.
• Judgment balance, including only legally allowable adjudicated additions: J=$600.00.
• Bank fees: $0.00.
• No second creditor.
• E remains an unfilled legal input. C015, C023–C026, C046–C048.

Below-boundary branch

Balance = E − $100.00, assuming E is at least $100.00.

State-protected amount = min(balance, E) = E − $100.00.

Candidate nonexempt money = max(0, balance − E) = max(0, −$100.00) = $0.00.

Candidate garnishment judgment = min(J, candidate nonexempt money) = min($600.00, $0.00) = $0.00.

Above-boundary branch

Change only balance to E + $800.00.

Candidate nonexempt money = max(0, E + $800.00 − E) = $800.00.

Candidate garnishment judgment = min($600.00, $800.00) = $600.00.

The remaining $200.00 is not added to this creditor’s judgment merely because it is above E.

Adverse branch: if eligibility, selection, ownership, or the applicable version is unresolved, the legal input E is not established. The numerical result is then held, not replaced with $5,000, $300, or a privately published2026 estimate.

Model 2 — Qualifying direct benefits mixed with other money

Inputs

• Fictional order received and review performed October20,2026.
• Balance at service: $6,500.00.
• Balance at review: $6,500.00.
• Qualifying coded Social Security deposits: $1,500.00 on September2 and $1,500.00 on October2.
• Lookback posting days: August19 through October19 under the regulatory corresponding-date method.
• Other money in the account: $3,500.00.
• J=$8,000.00.
• Fees=$0.00.
• For the first branch only, assume E was validly selected for a different account; no state(A)(9) amount is allocated to AccountA.
• No further substantive exemption in the excess is established. C070–C078, C086, C098.

Calculation

Q = $1,500.00 + $1,500.00 = $3,000.00.

P = min(Q, review balance) = min($3,000.00, $6,500.00) = $3,000.00.

Excess above automatic federal protection = $6,500.00 − $3,000.00 = $3,500.00.

Candidate amount after this protection, before court adjudication = min($8,000.00, $3,500.00) = $3,500.00.

Actually remitted solely because the writ/review occurred: $0.00. The model supplies no garnishment judgment or delivery of it.

Same-account state-exemption branch

If E is instead claimed for AccountA, it cannot simply be subtracted again without determining overlap.

Let S be the amount legally allocated to the state exemption in this account. Let O be the dollars protected by both P and S.

Union of those protections = min($6,500.00, P + S − O).

Candidate remainder = max(0, $6,500.00 − union).

Neither S nor O is adjudicated here. The governing sources preserve other exemptions; they do not supply a universal allocation answer for every mixed account. The same-account combined result remains held.

Model 3 — Balance cap, followed by a transfer to another account

Initial inputs

• Review date: October20,2026.
• Same two qualifying deposits and lookback dates as Model2: Q=$3,000.00.
• Earlier spending has reduced AccountA to $2,500.00 at both service and review.
• Sole ownership.
• No fee, competing order, or adjudicated additional exemption.
• No need to use E to reach the first result. C075–C078, C086, C093.

Initial calculation

P_A = min($3,000.00, $2,500.00) = $2,500.00.

Excess_A = $2,500.00 − $2,500.00 = $0.00.

Transfer variant — explicitly changed facts

Before service/review, on October18, $1,500.00 was transferred fromA toB.

Balances at service/review:

• AccountA=$1,000.00.
• AccountB=$1,500.00.
• Total remains $2,500.00.

AccountB has no qualifying coded direct benefit deposit in its own lookback period. It received an ordinary interaccount transfer.

Automatic review results:

P_A = min($3,000.00, $1,000.00) = $1,000.00. P_B = min($0.00, $1,500.00) = $0.00. Total automatically protected under these separate reviews = $1,000.00.

The remaining $1,500.00 is not thereby adjudged collectible. If it is traceable protected benefit money, §407 and the applicable tracing law may protect it beyond the automatic review. A valid state exemption selection might also matter. Those legal and evidentiary predicates are held.

The bank’s automatic calculation does not transport the original $3,000.00 lookback total toB or count it twice.

Model 4 — Garnishment fee against a fully protected account

Inputs

• Review balance=$2,500.00.
• Qualifying lookback deposits=$3,000.00.
• P=$2,500.00.
• Hypothetical processing fee otherwise valid under all applicable law/contract: F=$40.00. This is an assumption, not a verified Arizona fee entitlement.
• A new $20.00 nonbenefit deposit arrives within the rule’s five-business-day postreview window.
• No other unprotected balance. C027, C081.

Calculation

Amount available from P for this garnishment fee = $0.00.

Federal rule’s ceiling based on the new nonbenefit deposit = min(F, new nonbenefit deposit) = min($40.00, $20.00) = $20.00.

Uncollected part of assumed fee = $40.00 − $20.00 = $20.00.

This does not authorize collecting that remainder from P.

Adverse branch: if the new $20.00 is itself a qualifying benefit payment, the modeled nonbenefit-deposit exception does not supply $20.00 for the fee. If the fee lacks an independent lawful basis, permissible collection is $0.00, regardless of the federal ceiling.

Eighteen fictional postures

1. Below E: A selected account contains E−$100. The state-only calculation yields no candidate nonexempt balance; an actual exemption/version determination is still required. C015, C023–C026; Model1.
2. Above E but smaller judgment: An account contains E+$800 but the permissible judgment balance is $600. The extra $200 does not enlarge this creditor’s judgment. C046; Model1.
3. Direct Social Security plus wages already deposited: The bank has the Model2 mixture. Automatic P protects $3,000; the wage source of the remainder does not itself restore the payroll formula. Other exemptions remain possible. C077–C078, C094.
4. Two exemptions claimed over the same dollars: The holder claims both federal benefit protection and E in the same account. Establish allocation/overlap before subtraction; do not deduct the same dollars twice. C082, C098.
5. Cash or transferred benefit money: A cash deposit or ordinary transfer is said to originate in Social Security. Automatic coding protection is not proved; substantive exemption/tracing is also not disproved. C071, C075, C086, C093.
6. Joint title, ownership unproved: Only one account holder is the judgment debtor. The bank’s record names trigger notice/joinder; they do not determine that the debtor owns the whole balance. C020–C022, C095.
7. Accounts at two banks: The individual asks for E at both. The statute’s single-account limitation must be addressed; Part212 nevertheless performs its own separate-account calculations. C026, C075.
8. Spouses request two exemptions: Combining exemptions is legally contemplated, but marital status, ownership, applicable version, and selections must be established. “Joint” alone is not the complete predicate. C022, C025.
9. Same writ served again: A qualifying federal review already occurred. Re-service of that same order does not call for repeated review or a new continuing capture under§212.6(f)–(g). A genuinely new order is different. C079.
10. Two creditors’ writs: Both assert priority in the same money. This pass supplies no universal first-served allocation result; operative judgments, process sequence, and responsive priority authority are missing. C016, C097.
11. Older contract, new writ: One fictional contract predates December5,2022 and another follows it; both have new bank writs. Neither contract date nor writ date is treated here as a universally decisive bank-exemption event. C031–C035.
12. Bank misses its initial answer: The creditor asserts immediate liability for the entire debt. Section1583 requires the further served appearance/answer-order stage and a subsequent failure before discretionary default. C053.
13. Objection filed late or copies not delivered: A debtor’s filing date is known but receipt/service facts are not. Timeliness and compliance remain held; acceptable good reason may matter, but relief is not automatic. C040–C041.
14. No answer received after fifteen days: The statutory notice identifies a hearing-request avenue. This does not alter the bank’s answer clock or prove how a real calendar ran. C017, C042.
15. Funds held, no garnishment judgment delivered: A creditor demands immediate payment. A hold is not the statutory transfer event. C014, C046–C048.
16. Ninety days elapsed, objection pending: Automatic release cannot be inferred solely from elapsed time because the statute contains an objection exception. C050.
17. Bankruptcy stay or discharge asserted: The assertion has not been verified against the applicable law and operative order/status. Neither collection nor release eligibility is decided here. C048, C100; deferred bankruptcy row.
18. Benefit posted on review day: The payment may fall outside the regulatory lookback deposit total even though it increases review balance. The underlying statutory benefit exemption still requires consideration; “not counted in Q” is not equivalent to “nonexempt.” C076–C078, C086; S018 AppendixC example4.

E. Granular coverage and remaining-investigation tables

“Answered” below means the bounded legal question has supporting evidence in this pass. It does not mean an actual case is ready for filing, freezing, payment, or release.

E1. Core coverage — 20 rows

E2. Workflow coverage — 18 rows

E3. Actor and court coverage — 9 rows

E4. Currentness coverage — 9 rows

E5. Model coverage — 4 rows

E6. Deferred required components — 14 rows

E7. Fifteen individual county-local holds

The inventory was freshly verified through S033/C099. No county’s complete local practice was checked.

E8. Territory, private-fact, and calendar holds — 4 rows

F. Exact P01 deferred-row crosswalk

The following provenance is user supplied. The review file itself was not opened, and its timestamp is not presented as this researcher’s access time.

G. Researcher self-check and record counts

Actual reading versus material not established

Actually read: the mapped Arizona statutory bodies; the relevant Proposition209 text in an official Legislative Council reproduction; the actual2022/2025/2026 acts identified above; relevant affected-section tables; material non-earnings forms and instructions in dated Supreme Court directives; material court-rule adoption text and the dated Justice Court rule reproduction; operative Part212 provisions and appendices; the material2013 final-rule text; the specified federal benefit statutes and linked exceptions within the disclosed versions; and the responsive published opinions described above.

Not established: the official2026 numerical E; a controlling bank-specific temporal holding deciding every older-debt posture; the complete current application/answer forms; the latest consolidated court rules after failed current routes; a complete2025–2026 update chain for federal statutes retrieved only in2024 editions; a universal selection/overlap/tracing/competing-writ rule; fifteen counties’ local practices; or any actual customer, creditor, bank, judgment, service, account, stay, discharge, or exemption status.

Search snippets and secondary dollar tables were discovery only. No secondary estimate was promoted into E. Opinion reproductions are identified by host. No unpublished opinion was relied on, so no unpublished-citation exception is invoked. Material later treatment is limited to what was actually read; this is not an independent review or citator certification.

No local coordinator file was written or claimed written. No application, court filing, form submission, contact, account change, purchase, publication, or private-record lookup occurred.

Separate counts

END S_AZ PASS-04.