Wage Garnishment
Your lender is coming after your paycheck, they must get a court order to legally garnish your pay for the debt you owe them. This can also occur for property and bank accounts, but we are focusing on wage garnishment only.
This can be embarrassing as well as financially painful. Never the less, when your employer is presented with a garnishment order there are certain guidelines the lender and employer must follow. There are federal laws and then there are state to state variances. Once a lender applies for wage garnishment the court will take over. The court will determine the amount, the time and terms of the garnishment based on your situation.
As you read further, you will see that even after your paycheck is garnished, there is still help to reverse this process.
Wage Garnishment Details
As a last resort, a garnishment is a legal remedy authorized by a court for monies owed. Generally, the original credit card company will sell the debt to a collection agency for pennies on the dollar. At some point this agency may decide to file a judgment against you to collect the debt. There are steps the creditor must take before they can go after a garnishment, but if approved, the order to garnish your wages will be processed and sent to your employer. Your employer will take the money from your paycheck and send it to the court, they in turn send it to the lender.
In the case of the IRS this garnishment process is a little quicker, but in general the process takes from 60 to 180 days to complete. Of course the best course of action is to find a wage garnishment attorney before it gets into the courts hands, but you still have options even after the court approves it.
Where the federal and state guidelines differ, the court will apply the lesser of the two rules.
Stop Garnishments
Here are a few things you can do to stop garnishments:
Quit Job - radical but works. When you find a new job they have to start the process all over again and they have to find out where you are. This buys time, but not practical.
Settle - you can try to negotiate with the collector, but if they have gone this far and succeeded they pretty much have you in a corner unless you have the lump sum they want.
Bankruptcy - this stops all garnishments and puts the process on hold. This is called a "Automatic Stay". There is even a chance depending on the timing that the money already collected could be returned to you.
Unless you hate your job and were going to quit anyway it seems bankruptcy is the logical choice. If you are faced with this situation it is highly advisable to get a wage garnishment attorney.
Wage Garnishment Attorney
You may think there is a big difference between a bankruptcy attorney and a wage garnishment attorney, but it seems not. If for some reason you can't file bankruptcy then find an attorney that is more experienced in wage disputes. They are better equipped to handle negotiations with the court if you want to negotiate term adjustments.
If you decide bankruptcy is the option to take, then either a bankruptcy or garnishment attorney can handle your case. The key here is speed, you want to stop your paycheck from being deducted ASAP so as to get as much money returned back to you as legally possible.
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Call a few lawyers for free consultations, get a a feel for what average fees are and how the process works. Once you hire an attorney you can rest better knowing your problem is now under control.
