Bank account seizure: what a debtor should do

When this applies

This guide is for you if the bank no­ti­fied you that your account was seized, pay­ments are not going through, or you have re­ceived an order from a state or private en­force­ment officer. In these sit­u­a­tions, the bank is usually not the source of the problem: it im­ple­ments the en­force­ment officer’s doc­u­ment, and the actual reason must be found in the en­force­ment pro­ceed­ing.

In Lviv and the sur­round­ing region, col­lec­tion may arise from a court order for payment, a no­tar­i­al writ of ex­e­cu­tion, a fine, child support, a loan, utility debt, or a court de­ci­sion. The right first step is to gather the details, not file a general com­plaint: the pro­ceed­ing number, en­force­ment officer, cred­i­tor, amount, doc­u­ment, and date you learned of the seizure. If the basis is a fine, sep­a­rate­ly check whether you can still chal­lenge the ad­min­is­tra­tive fine.

Applicable deadline or procedure

The Law of Ukraine “On En­force­ment Pro­ceed­ings” allows an en­force­ment officer to seize a debtor’s funds to ensure that a de­ci­sion is en­forced. The bank im­ple­ments the order based on the details it re­ceives, so an in­for­mal arrange­ment with the bank is not enough to lift the seizure; the pro­ceed­ing needs a proper legal basis.

Since 23.10.2026, Article 39-1 of the Law “On En­force­ment Pro­ceed­ings” has pro­vid­ed a sep­a­rate mech­a­nism fol­low­ing set­tle­ment. It con­cerns de­ci­sions whose col­lec­tion amount does not exceed 10 minimum wages fixed on 1 January of the current cal­en­dar year. Do not sub­sti­tute only today’s out­stand­ing balance for that con­di­tion: ask the en­force­ment officer to check el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the par­tic­u­lar de­ci­sion. Funds must reach the ap­pro­pri­ate State En­force­ment Service or private officer’s account in an amount suf­fi­cient to satisfy the cred­i­tor’s claim and all ap­plic­a­ble en­force­ment fees, costs, fines and the private officer’s basic re­mu­ner­a­tion. Paying only the prin­ci­pal di­rect­ly to the cred­i­tor is a dif­fer­ent legal mech­a­nism.

ASVP gen­er­ates the set­tle­ment notice and sends it to the in­sti­tu­tion on the day it is gen­er­at­ed. The bank lifts the cor­re­spond­ing seizure no later than the next day from receipt of the notice. The period runs from notice receipt, not from click­ing “Pay”; this pro­vi­sion does not say “next working day”. The notice does not remove in­de­pen­dent seizures in other pro­ceed­ings. Where this mech­a­nism does not apply, the or­di­nary pro­ce­dure for lifting seizure under Article 59 and other statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions re­quires the ap­pro­pri­ate basis and doc­u­ments. Re­turn­ing a doc­u­ment to the cred­i­tor or any form of com­ple­tion of pro­ceed­ings does not by itself guar­an­tee removal of all re­stric­tions.

During martial law, an in­di­vid­ual may ask the officer who imposed the seizure to des­ig­nate one current account for debit trans­ac­tions. The per­mit­ted amount per cal­en­dar month is up to 2 minimum wages fixed on 1 January of the current year. Specify the IBAN and bank and obtain the order des­ig­nat­ing the account. This is a sep­a­rate arrange­ment for using some funds, not ex­tin­guish­ment of the debt or a full release of seizure.

What to do step by step

First, record the in­for­ma­tion from the bank. Save the notice, request the order details, and find out whether the en­force­ment pro­ceed­ing number is listed. If the details are in­suf­fi­cient, check the Unified Reg­is­ter of Debtors and the Au­to­mat­ed En­force­ment Pro­ceed­ings System, then ask the en­force­ment officer for copies of the orders.

Since 24.10.2026, a party views their ASVP ma­te­ri­als through the elec­tron­ic cabinet after elec­tron­ic iden­ti­fi­ca­tion; the former access iden­ti­fi­er is no longer used to open the ma­te­ri­als. See the guide to check­ing en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings for sig­na­ture re­quire­ments and the sign-in se­quence. Keep the pro­ceed­ing number and details of the chal­lenged doc­u­ment: the access change does not remove that need.

The second step is to obtain the ma­te­ri­als ex­plain­ing the basis for the seizure. You need the order opening the pro­ceed­ing, the order seizing funds, the en­force­ment doc­u­ment details, a cal­cu­la­tion of the amount, and cred­i­tor in­for­ma­tion. Without these doc­u­ments, it is dif­fi­cult to tell whether the issue lies with the en­force­ment officer’s actions or the debt itself.

The third step is to choose your re­sponse. If you need access to some funds, apply to des­ig­nate an account for debit trans­ac­tions. If the en­force­ment officer has not taken pro­tect­ed funds into account or refuses to respond to your doc­u­ments, prepare an ap­pli­ca­tion or a com­plaint about the en­force­ment officer’s actions. If the basis for col­lec­tion is dis­put­ed, check whether you can cancel a court order for payment, chal­lenge a no­tar­i­al writ of ex­e­cu­tion, or take another route to court. If the dispute has not yet reached en­force­ment, the cred­i­tor should un­der­stand how a debt re­cov­ery claim is pre­pared.

If you decide to settle, request current payment details and a com­plete cal­cu­la­tion in writing before trans­fer­ring funds. The guide to check­ing an en­force­ment-fee order helps iden­ti­fy the charges; an es­ti­mate cannot replace your pro­ceed­ing’s doc­u­ments. After payment, keep the receipt and confirm cred­it­ing of funds, any ad­di­tion­al amounts due and gen­er­a­tion of the ASVP notice. Sep­a­rate­ly ask the bank when it re­ceived the notice or order and which seizure remains. If there is no re­sponse, submit a written request and retain proof of de­liv­ery. Do not make another payment blindly.

Ed­u­ca­tion­al example for Lviv: after re­turn­ing from abroad, a person settles a debt using the private officer’s payment details but still cannot use the card. The bank con­firms release of the cor­re­spond­ing seizure and iden­ti­fies another pro­ceed­ing con­cern­ing a fine. Instead of paying the first debt again, the person should obtain the second officer’s doc­u­ments and es­tab­lish the sep­a­rate basis for re­stric­tion. A receipt for the first pro­ceed­ing does not prove that the con­di­tions for re­leas­ing another seizure are met.

What to check before filing

Before filing any ap­pli­ca­tion, make sure you have the date you learned of the seizure, a copy or details of the order, the pro­ceed­ing number, the en­force­ment officer’s in­for­ma­tion, and ev­i­dence of the vi­o­la­tion. This is crit­i­cal for a court com­plaint because the dead­line is often cal­cu­lat­ed from when the person learned or should have learned of the vi­o­la­tion of their rights.

Check the source of the funds sep­a­rate­ly. If social ben­e­fits, des­ig­nat­ed-purpose pay­ments, or other pro­tect­ed funds are paid into the account, support this with doc­u­ments rather than an ex­pla­na­tion alone. If the funds are salary, do not assume au­to­mat­i­cal­ly that the account has a special status.

Sep­a­rate­ly iden­ti­fy what is being chal­lenged: the en­force­ment officer’s order or the doc­u­ment au­tho­ris­ing col­lec­tion. For a court order for payment, check service and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of can­celling the payment order; for a no­tar­i­al writ, check the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­ce­dure for chal­leng­ing a notary’s writ of ex­e­cu­tion. If col­lec­tion under a dis­put­ed en­force­ment doc­u­ment needs to be sus­pend­ed, assess the con­di­tions for interim relief. Re­fer­ring to the age of the debt does not by itself cancel an ef­fec­tive court de­ci­sion; the dead­line for pre­sent­ing an en­force­ment doc­u­ment is a sep­a­rate issue.

When to consult a lawyer

A lawyer can help if the account is used for crit­i­cal pay­ments, the amount is sub­stan­tial, there are several pro­ceed­ings, doc­u­ments are not being pro­vid­ed, or the en­force­ment officer ignores your ap­pli­ca­tions. These cases require a prompt dis­tinc­tion between un­block­ing some funds, fully lifting the seizure, and dis­put­ing the debt.

For Lviv and re­gion­al cases, collect the order, cal­cu­la­tion, re­ceipts and the bank’s re­sponse about current re­stric­tions for each seizure. We can dis­tin­guish an un­cred­it­ed payment, delayed doc­u­ment, pro­tect­ed funds and a sep­a­rate pro­ceed­ing, then select an ap­pli­ca­tion or com­plaint. See help with lifting an account seizure for details. Send per­son­al doc­u­ments only through an agreed private channel.