Finding Relief From A Receiver

Previous post have discussed an aggressive creditor collection tactic to collect judgments against Florida residents from courts outside of Florida. Briefly, the creditors had the foreign court appoint a receiver over the person of the debtor and all his non-exempt personal property. The receiver obtained an order from the foreign court ordering the Florida debtor to appear with his non-exempt personal property in the foreign court house and hand over the property to the debtor. The creditor asked for specific personal property owned by the debtor. When the debtor does appear at the first scheduled hearing with his property, the creditor seeks an order holding the Florida debtor in contempt and ordering his arrest. Two of my clients are currently under this type of receivership attack

The first client appears to have mounted a successful counterattack. I referred the client an Orlando litigation attorney who, working with me, sued the foreign receiver in a Florida court. Our complaint asked the Florida court to declare the debtor’s specific personal property to be exempt from process under Florida law and therefore not subject to collection by any foreign receiver. The Florida court gave us what we asked for. The Florida court issued an order finding, item by item, that the client’s personal property is exempt from levy, that he has no non-exempt property, and ordering the receiver to stop further levy upon this exempt property. We sent the order to the debtor foreign counsel to quash the receiver’s continued attempt to seize the property in Florida.

When faced with a foreign receivership over a debtor and his personal property, it seems that the best defense is to open a proceeding in Florida, name the receiver as defendant, and ask to Florida court to decide whether specific property of the debtor is exempt under Florida law.

Last updated on May 22, 2020