Wage Garnishments and Bank Levies

Once a creditor has a judgment they can garnish your wages which means that they can take up to 25% of your paycheck or a smaller amount if that was what was remaining after leaving you with minimum wage. They give you 10 days notice before garnishing your wages. There are certain various situations where creditors are not allowed to garnish your wages. For instance, if you have recently been in receipt of certain public assistance, recently incarcerated (not a popular choice) within a certain time frame, receiving unemployment, etc. But that doesn't mean that they can't try. It is upsetting to get one of these notices in the mail. Don't panic! Even if a garnishment has started we can still stop the garnishment with a bankruptcy filing. It is also sometimes possible to get some or all of the garnished funds back dependent on when they took the money from your paycheck and how much they got. We can't guarantee we can get funds back for our clients but often do so within the limits of the law.

Bank levies are a different matter. They come without notice at all and they completely drain your bank account...leaving you with nothing in the account and bouncing checks all over town. It is effective upon service on the bank and a bankruptcy filing will not stop it. (We can stop future bank levies with a bankruptcy filing but not the one that has already occurred). Once the levy has been made you will get paperwork from your bank and the creditor. If the funds are derived from certain sources...like Social Security for instance) or other circumstances as mentioned above in the discussion on garnishment) by law they will be exempt from levy and the creditor will have to instruct the bank to have the funds released once you have asserted the exemption by filing out the paperwork that comes with the notice of the levy. Also, even though the funds might not be in the nature of those that can be exempted from the levy process it may be possible to get the funds back in certain circumstances depending on when they took the funds and in what amount but as with garnished wages described above we always advise clients not to count on it as there is no guarantee.

Quite frankly, if your creditors are at this stage in collecting on you then you should have already been gotten your case filed. Don't delay any longer as things will go from bad to worse. Contact us and we will get your situation resolved.