You found out from your bank, or from a failed payroll run. A funder with a judgment can restrain your operating account, and account freezes arrive suddenly and without notice. Everything below is measured in days, not weeks.
Today
- Find out who did it and under what. Ask your bank for the restraining document, the case caption, and the claimed amount. You cannot respond to what you have not read.
- Determine whether a judgment exists, and whether it came from a confession of judgment or a default judgment. The two open different doors.
- Get counsel on it the same day. This is post-judgment practice and it rewards speed above almost everything.
- Triage operations. Identify what has to clear this week, what can wait, and which obligations will cross-default if they fail.
- Do not open a new account to hide funds. Transparent continuity of operations is defensible. Concealment is not, and it converts a collection problem into a much worse one.
Why this is often reversible
Because the funder wants money, not administration, and a frozen business generates neither. Restraints get released or narrowed in negotiation regularly, particularly when the funder would rather have a payment stream than a one-time grab from a company it just disabled. Procedural defects, exemption issues, and overstated claimed amounts are all common and all cut your way.
A frozen account is often negotiable in days rather than months, especially when the response comes from someone the funder’s counsel recognizes as capable. The owner who calls the collector personally to plead almost always does worse than the one whose lawyer calls with the defects listed.
If the judgment came from a confession
Depending on the state there are procedures to strike or open a confessed judgment, and the grounds are frequently available: defects in the warrant of attorney, a confessed amount larger than what is actually owed, notice failures, or an underlying agreement that is unenforceable. Pennsylvania in particular still enforces these routinely and has a defined path to challenge them after entry.
Funders sometimes offer to release the freeze in exchange for a new note, a new confession of judgment, or a payment schedule you cannot actually meet. Signing under that pressure is how a bad week becomes a bad year. Have someone read it first.
Getting out of an MCA is not a DIY project. The funders have lawyers. The contracts have confessions of judgment. Someone has to read your agreements, line by line. Our #1-rated firm does that on a free call. No upfront fees.