In Georgia, creditors are allowed to seize 25% of your wages to collect on a debt if they first obtain a judgment against you. Other creditors like the IRS, Georgia Department of Revenue, and Department of Education can garnish your wages without first going to court. Although you are supposed to get notice of a possible wage garnishment first, we have seen many instances where the first notice our client gets that his wages are being garnished is when he looks at his pay stub and sees that a percentage of his income is missing. Don’t let this happen to you.
We often speak to clients who are frantic and angry when they discover that checks for rent, groceries or utilities have bounced because someone has garnished their paycheck. In almost every one of these situations we discover that our client had been served with a lawsuit many months earlier, but nothing happened for several months until the garnishment was actually served on their employer.
Can I Ask my Employer to Hold Off on Withholding Money While I Think About What to Do?
Unfortunately, your employer is not likely to sit on the garnishment order. This is because under the law, if your employer does not honor the garnishment, they will become responsible for the full amount of the judgment. Obviously, your employer is not going to want to pay your debts so our experience has been that companies always honor wage garnishment orders.
Are There any Non-Bankruptcy Options to Stop a Wage Garnishment?
You can certainly try to work out a deal with the plaintiff’s attorney representing the judgment creditor. If you have access to a lump sum of cash, you may be able to settle for less than 100 cents on the dollar. However, unless you have cash, there is not much incentive for the plaintiff’s attorney to cancel the garnishment voluntarily.
You could also file a lawsuit in the county where the fi fa was issued to “collaterally attack” the judgment. A “fi fa” is the document a judgment creditor sends to your employer to start the garnishment. A collateral attack is one where you argue that the judgment should be voided because you were not properly served or because there is some other fundamental defect in the lawsuit process.
Usually, state court judges will not allow you to argue the merits of whether you actually owe the money if you did not respond in time. For example, if you were properly served a lawsuit to collect a debt that was not yours, but you failed to answer the lawsuit and a judgment was issued, most state court judges will say that you cannot collaterally attack the judgment. This is why, by the way, that you should never ignore any type of lawsuit.
Can Filing Bankruptcy Stop a Wage Garnishment?
Yes, bankruptcy can stop a wage garnishment and it is usually the most certain way to stop a garnishment and protect your paycheck. Generally the filing of a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 case will create something called an “automatic stay” which will put an immediate halt to any pending garnishment. Different rules regarding the automatic stay may apply if you have previously filed a bankruptcy within the last few years – your lawyer can explain these rules.
Will I Get my Money Back if I File Bankruptcy?
Sometimes you can get your money back. It depends on how fast we can get your case filed, the Chapter we file and who has possession of the money. Every case is different but you can increase your chances for a favorable result if you move quickly.
What Should I Do if I am Concerned About a Possible Wage Garnishment?
You need to find out for certain if your wages are at risk. One way is to request a credit report, which you can do at no cost. The second is to search for your name on the online dockets at the clerk of court in the county where you now live and where you lived recently. If you are not sure how to do this, feel free to call us at 770-393-4985. You do not want to ignore the problem of a possible wage garnishment in the hope that it will go away. If it turns out that filing bankruptcy is a good option for you we can explain how that works.