Civil Division

Please note:  Requests for service of civil documents received after 2:30 p.m., Monday-Friday, may be processed the following business day or as soon as possible thereafter. 

Prepayment of Sheriff Fees

All individuals and out-of-state businesses are required to prepay for services unless other arrangements have been made in advance or unapplicable by Iowa or Federal Law.  If prepayment is required you may contact the Office Deputy (listed below) in advance for an estimate of costs.  Any additional fees incurred above the estimate will be invoiced, and unused funds over $5.00 will be refunded unless requested otherwise at the time payment is made. 

Upon receipt of the final payment our Affidavit of Service will be filed with the clerk of court, or sent to the person requesting the service. 

Contact the Office Deputy for an estimate or send a minimum of $100 per individual needing to be served, and the above  policy will apply.

Original Notices

An information, advice, or written warning in more or less formal shape, intended to apprise a person of some proceeding in which his interests are involved, or informing him of some fact which it is his right to know and the duty of the notifying party to communicate.

General Executions - Personal Property

A general execution is a writ commanding an officer to satisfy a judgment out of any personal property of the defendant. If authorizing him to levy only on certain specified property, the writ is sometimes called a special execution. In other words simply stated, the sheriff is ordered to levy on any and all non-exempt property. A general execution can be by garnishment, sheriff sale or levy. Due to Iowa Code Section 642.14A passed July 1, 2014, we now require $100.00 prepayment on all garnishments.

Garnishments

A garnishment is a legal proceeding taken by a "creditor" after a judgment is received from a court against a "debtor". If the creditor knows that the debtor has money, or property, in the hands of a "garnishee" (wages owed by the debtor's employer, funds in a bank account, etc.), the creditor can take as much as the law allows.

Injunction

A court order prohibiting someone from doing some specified act or commanding someone to undo some wrong or injury. A prohibitive, equitable remedy issued or granted by a court at the suit of a party complainant, directed to a party defendant in the action, or to a party made a defendant for that purpose, forbidding the latter from doing some act which he is threatening or attempting to commit,  or restraining him in the continuance thereof, such act being  unjust an inequitable, injurious to the plaintiff, and not such as can be adequately redressed by an action at law. A judicial process operating in personam, and requiring person to whom it is directed to do or refrain from doing a particular thing. Generally, it is a preventive and protective remedy, aimed at future acts, and is not intended to redress past wrongs.

Temporary Injunction

A preliminary or provisional injunction, or one granted pending the lawsuit; as opposed to a final or perpetual injunction. A provisional remedy to preserve subject matter of controversy pending trial. It is one which operates until dissolved by interlocutory order (meaning: one which does not finally determine a course of action by only decides some intervening matter pertaining to the cause, and which requires further steps to be taken in order to enable the court to adjudicate the cause on the merits.) until final hearing on matter. (Also refer to temporary restraining order)

Order

A mandate, precept; a command or direction authoritatively given; a rule or regulation. Direction of a court or judge made or entered in writing, and not included in a judgment, which determines some point or directs some step in the proceedings. An application or an order is a motion.

Restraining Order

An order which may issue upon the filing of an application for an injunction forbidding the defendant to do the threatened act until a hearing on the application can be held. Though the term is sometimes used as a synonym of "injunction," a restraining order is properly distinguished from an injunction in that the former is intended only as a restraint upon the defendant until the propriety of granting an injunction, temporary or perpetual, can be determined, and it does no more than restrain the proceedings until such determination.

Temporary Restraining Order

An emergency judicial remedy of brief duration which may issue only in exceptional circumstances and only until the trial court can hear arguments or evidence, as the circumstances require, on the subject matter of the controversy and otherwise determine what relief is appropriate. Court order which is issued to maintain status quo pending a hearing on an application for an injunction.

Show Cause Order

Court order, decree, execution, etc, to appear as directed, and present to the court such reasons and considerations as one has to offer why a particular order, decree, etc. should not be confirmed, take effect, be executed, or as the case may be. Prepayment of $100.00 is required upon receipt of the Execution and prior to setting the sale date.

Real Estate Sales General Execution

General Execution: is a writ commanding an officer to satisfy a judgment out of property of the defendant. It is for a money judgment.

Real Estate Sales Special Execution

A copy of a judgment with a direction to the sheriff that lists the specific property the judgment was rendered against. Prepayment of $100.00 is required upon receipt of the Execution and prior to setting the sale date.

Subpoena

A process to cause a witness to appear and give testimony, commanding him to lay aside all pretenses and excuses, and appear before a court or magistrate therein named at a time therein mentioned to testify for the party named under a penalty therein mentioned.

Summons

A writ, directed to the sheriff or other proper officer, requiring him to notify the person named that an action has been commenced against him in the court whence the writ issues, and that he is required to appear, on a day named, and answer the complaint in such action.

Citation

A writ issued out of a court of competent jurisdiction, commanding a person therein named to appear on a day named and do something therein mentioned, or show cause why he should not.

Writ of Replevin

An action whereby the owner or person entitled to repossession of goods or chattels may recover those goods or chattels from one who has wrongfully distrained or taken or who wrongfully detains such good or chattels. Also refers to a provisional remedy that is an incident to a replevin action which allows the plaintiff at any time before judgment to take the disputed properly from the defendant and hold the property pending the lawsuit.  

Poweshiek County Sheriff's Office
Attn: Civil Division
PO Box 297
4802 Barnes City Rd.
Montezuma, Iowa 50171

Office Hours
Monday - Friday
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Phone: 641-623-5679 (Opt. 3)
Fax: 641-623-5120
Email: Cecily Carpenter, Office Deputy