A lot of times I get questions about whether you can file a bankruptcy to stop a garnishment or a lawsuit. Usually, what happens is that a secured creditor, that is somebody whose property you still are paying for, they can go ahead and either foreclose on your home or they can go ahead and take the vehicle back or the furniture back, something of that nature. Those are the remedies of the secured creditor.
However, a lot of times people have what we call unsecured creditors; it might be a medical bill, it could be a credit card. In those instances, what happens is that the remedy for that particular creditor is to file a lawsuit against you, get a judgment and then try to garnish you and collect their front, the money that you owe them from those means. In Georgia, creditors can go ahead and garnish your wages up to 25% of your wages unless, and this is the only exception unless you make approximately $15,000 per year.
If you are threatened with a garnishment by an unsecured creditor or any creditor for that matter or you’re facing a lawsuit, you should contact a bankruptcy lawyer as soon as possible to discover what your rights are. There are three types of creditors who don’t really have to go into court to get a judgment against you to be able to garnish your wages, that would be if you owe the IRS or the Georgia Department of Revenue any money from unpaid income taxes, they can garnish your wages.
Likewise, if you owe on back child support, you can automatically be garnished for the back child support. Finally, if you’ve taken out any student loans and you’ve defaulted on those loans, the student loan folks, can go ahead and garnish you also. Even if you have been garnished by one of these creditors, that is the IRS or the Georgia Department of Revenue or for the Child Support Division or from some student loan, if you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy or for that matter even a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the filing of that bankruptcy petition will at least temporarily stop them from garnishing you.
If you think that you are need of help for filing a bankruptcy case in order to stop a garnishment or to stop a lawsuit, call my office at 770-792-1000 and I’ll be able to help you.
Bankruptcy FAQ:
Frequently Asked Questions: Table of Contents Who is permitted to file and maintain a chapter 7 case? Who should not file a Chapter 7 case? Is there anything that a person must do
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