Ex-parte judgements are questionable period. See the 5th and 14th amendments (in effect: a person shall not be deprived of any interest in liberty or property without due process). They are usually for a ‘temporary’ action and not permanent. Removing money from an account through ‘ex-parte’ is a rather permanent action unless you intend to put it back…

FYI to other readers: ex-parte means an action and judgement by one party in a dispute without notification of the other party and without giving the other party time to respond.

It looks like the people mentioned in the article should have declared bankruptcy before the second took action. Bankruptcy would have prevented the second from being able to directly attach the wages/accounts.

Too many of these cases by banks may cause them to get ‘slapped back’ pretty hard. Their traditional process would be for the second to foreclose on the property, clear the first and then resell the property. I suspect the second knows that the property is so far underwater that the sale of the property would probably not even clear the first, much less the outstanding on the second.