§ 8.01-515.How garnishee examined; determining exemption from employee's withholding certificate; amount due pursuant to exemptions in subsection A of § 34-29.

Once a garnishee is served, it has to answer for what it owes or holds. Section 8.01-515 sets the ground rules for that response. An individual garnishee appears in person and answers under oath, or can skip the appearance by filing a written statement instead; a corporate garnishee answers through an authorized agent the same way, with the statement not needing to be under seal.

The statement has one job: disclose the amount owed to the debtor, or describe any property or effects held that belong to, or in which the debtor has an interest. Paying money directly to the court satisfies this requirement just as well as filing a written statement.

If either the debtor or the creditor doubts the statement’s truth or accuracy, the statute gives them a way to test it — a new summons forcing the garnishee or its agent to appear for examination under oath and produce whatever books and papers are needed to sort out the facts.

For wage garnishments, the employer gets a shortcut for figuring exemptions: it can rely on the number of exemptions shown on the employee’s federal income tax withholding certificate, treating anyone claiming more than one exemption as a householder or head of family, until the court orders otherwise. Absent a different instruction on the summons or from the court, the employer applies the exemption formula in § 34-29(A) by default.