Automatic stay & garnishment

[Missa310]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around this forum for the last week and there is such good advice floating around. Thanks for that.

Here's my question of the day: I've paid my atty fees and the petition is getting written up and should be filed (hopefully) by Friday or Monday. My question is: When I get the auto stay paperwork, how soon before the garnishment that is taking place stop? I know it has to stop immediately, but I don't think it's going to make it to my payroll department before end of week. Payroll is usually done on the Wed before payday. Should the amount that is going to paid toward the garnishment after the AS be refunded back to me or am I SOL?

Thanks again. ~melissa

[justbroke]

It won't be refunded back to you if it was garnished "before" the automatic stay kicked in. So, if your payday is this Friday, April 23rd, then by your calculation, the garnishment already happened on Wednesday, April 21st. Most payroll departments issue the garnishment checks before the actual pay date (especially at large companies).

If you do get a garnishment after filing, your attorney may need to intervene as some garnishments/levies can't be stopped just by the automatic stay, since they were issued via a court order. I had an IRS "voluntary" garnishment, and my payroll department wouldn't stop it until they received a court order, which just happened to be my wage order (from my Chapter 13).