Can a Joint Bank Account Be Garnished in Florida?

A joint bank account can be garnished in Florida even when the judgment is against only one account holder. When a creditor serves a writ of garnishment on a bank, the bank freezes every account where the debtor’s name appears, including joint accounts. Whether the creditor can collect depends on the type of joint ownership, who contributed the money, and whether the non-debtor co-owner acts quickly.

The outcome turns on one distinction: accounts held as tenants by the entireties versus every other form of joint ownership. Married couples in Florida benefit from a statutory presumption that their joint accounts are entireties property, which provides strong protection against individual creditors. Joint accounts between unmarried co-owners receive no comparable protection and are exposed to garnishment for either owner’s debts.

Can a Creditor Freeze a Joint Bank Account in Florida?

A creditor with a judgment against one account holder can freeze the entire joint bank account. The bank does not evaluate exemptions at the freezing stage. The freeze reaches an account held as tenants by the entireties on the same terms as any other joint account.

The freeze and the garnishment are two different events. A frozen account means the bank is holding the funds; it does not mean the creditor has collected anything. The debtor can file a claim of exemption under § 77.041 for funds that are personally exempt, such as head of family wages or Social Security benefits. If the creditor does not contest the claim within the statutory deadline, the garnishment is dissolved and the bank releases the funds.

How Tenants by Entireties Accounts Are Protected

A bank account owned by a married couple as tenants by the entireties cannot be garnished to satisfy a judgment against only one spouse. Entireties ownership treats the married couple as a single legal unit. Neither spouse individually owns a divisible interest in the account, so a creditor of one spouse has nothing to seize.

Florida Statute § 655.79 creates a presumption that any bank account titled jointly by husband and wife is a tenancy by the entirety unless the account documents say otherwise. The Legislature added the writing exception in 2008, and its effect on the six common-law unities was litigated until the Florida Supreme Court settled the question in December 2025. Under the current statute the disclaimer can appear in any writing, not only on the signature card. If no writing expressly disclaims entireties ownership, the account is presumed to be entireties property.

The Florida Supreme Court held in Loumpos v. Bank One, 423 So. 3d 856 (Fla. 2025), that the § 655.79 presumption applies even when an account originally started in one spouse’s name and was later converted to a joint account. The court rejected the argument that the old common-law “unity of time” requirement meant both spouses had to be on the account from the opening date. Under Loumpos, the presumption turns on how the account is held now, not how it began.

The court quashed the Second District’s contrary decision and approved the Fourth District’s result in Versace v. Uruven, LLC, 348 So. 3d 610 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022). In Versace, a creditor tried to garnish an account the debtor’s wife had originally opened alone, and the appellate court reversed the order allowing garnishment. The approval went to the result only: the supreme court reached it through the statute rather than through Beal Bank, which it held does not answer the question.

A married couple whose entireties account is frozen must raise entireties ownership themselves, in a claim of exemption or a motion to dissolve the writ.

When Entireties Protection Fails

A creditor whose judgment runs against both spouses can garnish an entireties account, and joint liability on the underlying debt is what produces such a judgment. Separate judgments against each spouse on different debts do not create a joint judgment for this purpose. A bankruptcy court applying Florida law held exactly that in In re Davis, 403 B.R. 914 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2009).

A federal tax lien attaches to entireties property for one spouse’s tax debt, and the IRS can levy the account. The IRS treats the liable spouse’s interest as half the balance (IRS Notice 2003-60), so the non-liable spouse recovers the other half, but only after the money is turned over. The Justice Department reaches entireties property through criminal forfeiture under 21 U.S.C. § 853. No decision holds that the SEC or the FTC can reach Florida entireties property for one spouse’s liability.

Entireties protection ends at divorce and at the death of either spouse. Divorce immediately converts entireties property to a tenancy in common, and the debtor spouse’s share becomes exposed to creditors. If the non-debtor spouse dies first, the debtor spouse takes the entire account by survivorship, outside probate, and it becomes fully subject to garnishment.

The Signature Card Problem

A married couple’s account documentation can disclaim entireties ownership. If the signature card lists both “Joint Tenants with Right of Survivorship” and “Tenants by the Entireties” and the couple selects JTWROS, the account loses entireties protection even if the couple meant otherwise. Where the bank never offered entireties as a choice, or its paperwork expressly precluded it, the Florida Supreme Court held in Beal Bank that the couple may prove entireties intent by other evidence. No court has applied that rule since the Legislature amended the statute in 2008.

The Fourth District’s decision in Storey Mountain LLC v. George (2023) went further: the bank’s own customer agreement can disclaim entireties ownership even if the couple never actively chose a different ownership form. In Storey Mountain, the bank’s deposit agreement stated that joint spousal accounts were “NOT owned as tenants by the entireties” unless expressly designated as such. The court held that language qualified as the “otherwise specified in writing” required by § 655.79 to negate the presumption.

Some banks do not offer entireties as a titling option at all. Married couples should review their signature cards and the full account agreement to confirm that no language disclaims entireties ownership.

How Joint Accounts Between Unmarried Co-Owners Are Treated

Joint accounts between unmarried individuals—a parent and adult child, siblings, or business partners—receive no entireties protection. For garnishment purposes, money in a bank account is presumed to belong to the people whose names are on it, and a creditor of one co-owner can reach what the debtor actually owns. There is no automatic split. What the non-debtor keeps is measured by what the non-debtor contributed, together with a proportional share of any interest earned.

The bank freezes the whole account when the writ arrives, including the co-owner’s money. A non-debtor co-owner who wants that money back has to intervene in the garnishment and identify the funds that are theirs.

Directly deposited federal benefits are a separate case. When a bank receives a garnishment order, federal law requires it to look back two months and leave the federal benefit payments it finds accessible, without freezing them and without anyone filing a claim. That protection is conclusive, so a parent whose Social Security arrives by direct deposit keeps those two months. Anything above that amount is frozen and fought over in the ordinary way, and benefits paid by paper check get nothing.

Florida courts apply a “good conscience” test to evaluate whether garnished funds in a joint account truly belong to the non-debtor co-owner. In Antuna v. Dawson, the Fourth District held that property not actually owned in good conscience by the debtor cannot be seized by the judgment creditor. If a judgment debtor shares an account with an elderly parent and all deposits originated from the parent’s Social Security and pension income, the funds should not be garnished. The debtor in that scenario is merely managing the parent’s money.

The analysis changes if the debtor actually used the account funds for their own benefit. A debtor who deposits their own income into a joint account alongside a co-owner’s funds cannot claim the entire balance belongs to the co-owner. The court then allocates the balance between the debtor and the co-owner according to what each of them put in.

Why Commingled Funds Create a Tracing Problem

Joint accounts hold money from more than one source, and a contested garnishment turns on sorting it out. A co-owner who files a sworn claim puts ownership in issue, and the creditor must then prove the garnished funds belonged to the debtor. Courts have dissolved garnishments where the creditor produced nothing beyond suspicion. Records still decide these cases in practice: a co-owner who can show the source of each deposit gives the court something to rule on, and a creditor who cannot answer it loses the account.

Bank statements are what a co-owner uses to prove ownership. A statement history showing that the deposits came from the non-debtor’s paycheck, Social Security, or another identifiable income stream answers the question directly. When deposits from both owners run together over months or years with no records, the non-debtor has little to show a judge.

The tracing problem is especially acute when the debtor deposited head of household wages into a joint account alongside the co-owner’s non-exempt income. The debtor’s wages may be exempt under Florida’s head of household statute, and that protection follows the wages into the bank account—but only so long as the debtor can identify which dollars came from those wages.

Head of family earnings stay exempt for six months after the bank receives them, and the exemption is gone after that whether or not the record is clean. Section 222.11(3) also says in terms that commingling those earnings with other money does not by itself defeat tracing.

What the Non-Debtor Co-Owner Should Do After a Freeze

When a joint account is frozen and the judgment is against only one account holder, the non-debtor co-owner has procedural rights under Florida’s garnishment statute. Section 77.055 requires the creditor to serve notice on any person disclosed in the garnishee’s answer as having an ownership interest in the account. The bank’s answer to the writ will typically identify all account holders, which triggers the creditor’s obligation to notify each co-owner.

The non-debtor co-owner should gather documentation showing the source of every deposit: pay stubs, benefit award letters, and bank statements predating the garnishment.

Chapter 77 gives the co-owner two separate filings, and the garnishee’s answer decides which ones are open. A co-owner the bank’s answer names as an owner can move to dissolve the writ under § 77.07(2), stating that an allegation in the creditor’s motion for the writ is untrue. A co-owner the answer never names has no motion to dissolve. That co-owner files a sworn claim under § 77.16 that the money is theirs, and a jury decides the ownership question unless the parties waive one.

The motion to dissolve carries a hard 20-day deadline that runs from the date on the creditor’s certificate of service. A co-owner who files late has the motion struck and the case proceeds against them by default. The creditor can then take a Final Judgment of Garnishment against the entire frozen balance.

Sample Claim of Exemption Language for a Joint Account

A married couple whose account is garnished for one spouse’s judgment claims the entireties exemption in category 12 of the claim of exemption form, the catch-all the statute leaves open. The garnishment statute addresses that form to the defendant and closes it with the defendant’s signature, so a joint account holder who is not the judgment debtor files something else.

The Third District answered how much explanation category 12 needs in Abramov v. NextGear Capital, No. 3D24-0317 (Fla. 3d DCA Nov. 6, 2024). A judgment debtor checked category 12 and wrote that the garnished joint account held his wife’s money and that he was listed only as a joint spouse. The trial court ruled he had waived the entireties exemption because he never used the phrase tenancy by the entireties.

The appellate court reversed, holding that the statute asks only for a completed form filed on time and that what he wrote put the court on notice that he was preserving the entireties exemption. The case went back for a hearing on whether the exemption applies.

Entireties Account Language for Category 12

The claim supplies the three facts the entireties presumption runs on: both names on the account, a marriage, and no writing or account selection that disclaims entireties ownership. Once the couple establishes those three facts, the presumption shifts the burden. The creditor then has to prove that the couple did not own the account as tenants by the entireties, and the standard is the greater weight of the evidence. The two sentences about the judgment and the debt answer the joint-liability objection before the creditor raises it.

Language for a Non-Debtor Co-Owner

A co-owner who is not the debtor’s spouse asserts ownership rather than an exemption, so the statement above does not go on the claim of exemption form. Chapter 77 prints no form for the motion to dissolve or for the third-party claim.

The statement names the account and the bank and identifies where the deposits came from. It separates the co-owner’s deposits from the debtor’s, and it says the two are not married so the entireties question never enters. A co-owner who moves to dissolve the writ becomes a party to the garnishment and can be made to answer discovery. The co-owner’s interest has to be determined before a final judgment can hand the creditor the balance.

Each statement puts the ownership question in front of the court. The entireties claim is decided at the exemption hearing when the creditor objects to it, and the co-owner’s sworn claim goes to a jury unless the parties waive one.

Can Transferring Money into a Joint Account Be a Fraudulent Transfer?

Moving money into a joint account after a judgment is entered creates fraudulent transfer exposure. Where the point of the move is to put non-exempt cash into an exempt entireties account, the governing statute is § 222.30, and a creditor has four years to bring that claim. Neither the account’s titling nor the family relationship of the co-owner blocks the challenge.

Even transfers into a legitimate entireties account can be scrutinized. Florida courts have held that an entireties account is protected, but transfers made after the facts giving rise to the debt may still be reversed as fraudulent conveyances. The account itself survives, but the specific transfer can be undone if the creditor shows it was made to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors.

The safest approach is to establish joint accounts and fund them as part of routine financial management well before any garnishment risk materializes. Accounts opened and funded during a marriage, with both spouses’ regular income, are far less vulnerable than accounts created or funded after a lawsuit is filed.