Rule 2-649.Charging order

A person's interest in a partnership or a limited liability company is not something a sheriff can walk off with. Rule 2-649 gives a judgment creditor a different tool for reaching it: the charging order. On written request, the court where the judgment was entered or recorded can order that the debtor's partnership interest or LLC interest be charged with payment of everything owed on the judgment. The court is not limited to that alone — it can also order other relief it considers necessary, including appointing a receiver over the debtor's share of the partnership's or company's profits and any other money that becomes due to the debtor because of that interest.

Because the order reaches into someone else's business, the rule is careful about notice. The charging order has to be served on the partnership or LLC the same way a party would serve process to get personal jurisdiction, and it can be served inside or outside the county. Once that service happens, whoever served it has to promptly mail a copy of the request and the order to the judgment debtor's last known address, so the debtor learns their interest has been charged even though the order was not served on them directly. Proof that both the service and the mailing happened gets filed with the court. From that point on, later pleadings and papers in the matter go to the creditor, the debtor, and the partnership or LLC through ordinary service on parties.