|
In Tennessee, wage garnishment can be avoided by filing bankruptcy.
In most cases, a creditor must sue you and win a judgment before your wages can be garnished. However, there are a few types of debt where a creditor does not have to get a judgment against you first such as child support, income taxes and student loans. In general, creditors can garnish up to 25% of your "bring home pay". (Your gross earnings after deductions for taxes and other expenses.) In many cases creditors have little incentive to work with you and therefore commence garnishing your wages. You can file a motion for slow pay with the general sessions court, and you may get some relief based on your income, number of dependents and other factors. Often, however, a slow pay motion, if granted, leaves you paying mostly interest on the debt, therefore taking a very long time to ever get the judgment paid off. Also, chances are, you owe a lot of other creditors money as well, and by the time you get one judgment paid off, another will be in line to attempt to garnish your wages as well. Often, due to moving and changing addresses, people don't find out that their wages are going be garnished until right before it happens. Filing for bankruptcy can help to stop wage garnishment. Once you have filed bankruptcy, the automatic stay stops all debt collection activity, including garnishment. Once you complete bankruptcy, all of your "unsecured", "non priority" debts (child support, student loans, taxes for example) will be discharged, giving you a fresh start. When facing wage garnishment, it is important to act quickly. If you find yourself facing garnishment, contact attorney Ivan McCullough for a free consultation to discuss your options. (931) 422-7086
0 Comments
|
RSS Feed