Wage Garnishments

If you do not pay your bills, a creditor can sue you for payment. Once you’ve been sued, you must defend the lawsuit or the creditor will win by default. After the creditor gets a judgment it can garnish your wages (and can also try to levy on any money you have in the bank). This can obviously have a devastating effect on your life and your financial situation.

The good news is that wage garnishments and lawsuits are halted immediately when you file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. When you file a bankruptcy petition, you are immediately put under the protection of an automatic stay. This means that all collection activities must stop. Violating the automatic stay can be costly to your creditors and most of them understand this, which means that they will back off once they are notified of the stay (but note that a few creditors are excluded from the automatic stay, such as those collecting child support or alimony).

If you are already dealing with wage garnishments we may be able to get back funds that were garnished within the 90 days before your case is filed. There is no guarantee of this but it is a possibility. Call us at 612-721-0230 if you want to talk to us about how this works. You don’t necessarily have to live with wage garnishments or with the threat of one.