Avoid Wage Garnishment
A wage garnishment is a harsh legal process by which your find out that one of your creditors has begun forcefully taking your wages that you receive from employment, in repayment of a debt that you owe. Your employer is ordered to deduct a certain amount of money from your paycheck, each pay period, and hand the money over to your creditor. In California, any one of your creditors can garnish your wages. A credit card lender can do a credit card garnishment, medical providers can do a garnishment for unpaid medical bills, your HOA can do a garnishment to collect HOA dues, and most people are very aware that the IRS can and will do an IRS wage garnishment. Virtually any other creditor can do a wage garnishment. Under certain circumstances, the federal government can even do a garnishment of social security income.
How a San Diego Wage Garnishment Attorney Can Help You
Once wages are garnished, the sheriff will typically hold on to the garnished wages for a short period of time, usually about a week, and the sheriff will notify all interested parties and give them an opportunity to object to the wage garnishment. For example, your wages may have been accidentally garnished because you have the same name as somebody else whose wages should have been garnished. If your wages have been wrongfully garnished, a San Diego wage garnishment attorney can help you recover the wrongfully garnished wages. Typically, though, you will not have any basis to object to a wage garnishment, and the only way to stop a wage garnishment in San Diego will be to immediately secure the services of an experienced attorney and file for bankruptcy relief.
Filing Bankruptcy in San Diego to Avoid Wage Garnishment
Filing bankruptcy in San Diego will stop a wage garnishment. The moment your lawyer files your bankruptcy case, all wage garnishments stop. This is because, upon the filing of your bankruptcy, an automatic bankruptcy stay goes into effect immediately by operation of law and stops all adverse collection action against you, including a wage garnishment. Your wages are restored to what they were before the garnishment began. If your employer has been recently served with a wage garnishment order, it is important that you contact an experienced San Diego bankruptcy attorney immediately. Your bankruptcy will take a few days, and possibly longer, to prepare, and until your bankruptcy case is filed, your wages will continue to be garnished.
When Does Wage Garnishment Begin?
In San Diego, pursuant to California law, once your employer is served with a wage garnishment order, the wage garnishment will begin on the date specified in the order, usually about one week to ten days after the order is served on your employer. As long as you file bankruptcy in San Diego before the wage garnishment order takes effect (about a week to ten days), your wages will not be garnished. Also, account for the time it will take your attorney to notify the San Diego sheriff of your bankruptcy filing, and account for 2-3 days for the sheriff to instruct your employer to stop a wage garnishment.
How Are Wages Are Garnished?
To enforce the wage garnishment, the county sheriff serves the wage garnishment order on your employer. In San Diego, the sheriff places priority on serving wage garnishment orders upon employers. They serve such orders ahead of lawsuits and service requests.
How Much of Wages Are Garnished?
Once a wage garnishment order is served by the sheriff, your employer must then deduct from your wages and pay to the sheriff a percentage (usually 25%) of your wages each pay period. The sheriff, in turn, hands the money to your creditor in partial repayment of your debt.
How Long Does Wage Garnishment Last?
Once any creditor files a lawsuit and obtains a judgment against you, whether by default or after a trial, your creditor can proceed to enforce the judgment through various judgment debt collection remedies, including a wage garnishment. Wage garnishments can continue for 20 years or until your debt to your creditor is paid off in full. The judgment upon which the garnishment is based lasts 10 years, and after 10 years the judgment creditor's attorney can renew the judgment for an additional 10 years.
IRS Wage Garnishment
When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is garnishing your wages for unpaid tax debt, the IRS can garnish your wages at any time after your taxes are due. The IRS does not need to go to Court and obtain a wage garnishment order, though the IRS usually does follow its own set of administrative procedures.
How a San Diego Bankruptcy Attorney Can Recover Garnished Wages
If your wages have already been garnished, a San Diego bankruptcy attorney may be able to recover some or all of the recently garnished wages. In San Diego, if your wages were garnished recently and are still in the hands of the sheriff when you file bankruptcy, the San Diego sheriff will turn the funds over to the bankruptcy trustee for the benefit of your estate. The San Diego sheriff typically holds on to garnished wages for 2-3 weeks before handing the money to your creditor. If you claimed the garnished wages as an asset in your bankruptcy and the amount is covered by your bankruptcy exemptions, you are entitled to have the funds returned to you. If the funds have already been sent by the sheriff to your creditor, then the bankruptcy trustee can still recover the funds as a preference payment and in that case, if the funds are within your exemptions, you will be entitled to keep them. If the trustee does not recover the funds as a preference, then your bankruptcy attorney can file an adversary lawsuit in bankruptcy court to have the funds returned to you, however the cost of filing such a lawsuit may exceed the amount that was garnished.
Free Consultation
If your wages have been garnished, or you are being threatened with a wage garnishment, you'll need the assistance of a lawyer, and fast. Contact Bankruptcy Legal Center today to schedule your free consultation with a San Diego bankruptcy attorney and learn how to avoid having your wages garnished and learn your options to stop a wage garnishment or recover wages that have been garnished. Call 1 (800) 44-DEBTS (1-800-443-3287).
