Automatic Stay on Garnishment

[elmoze]

A garnishment was scheduled to be taken out of my paycheck. However, I filed bankruptcy (Chapt. 7) and forwarded the petition information to my payroll department. I thought that this would stop the garnishment. However, when I received my paycheck the garnishment was taken out!

I thought that I was entitled to my full paycheck if an automatic stay was in place. I live in Oregon if that makes a difference.

Thanks for any input!

[mekia2001]

I thought the same thing. I am in the same situation currently. I am officially filing the petition one day next week and my attorney said that as soon as he gets a case number he will forward it to my employer. He did say that it may still come out but they'll return the funds to me. I was told that as soon the BK is filed they have to cease the garnishment activities.

I'm in Ohio but i thought it was the same process everywhere. Hope this helps

[justbroke]

Some payroll departments will not stop a garnishment until they have a court order. The filing of your petition and the automatic stay doesn't stop your employer from continuing to garnish. It's the creditor that is garnishing your wages, that you need to stop, or get a court order stopping the garnishment.

Been there, done that.

I had the IRS taking a voluntary garnishment from my paycheck. When I filed Chapter 13, they continued doing it for months. I even sent my employer's payroll department all sorts of paperwork! They didn't care because they can only stop on a Court's "specific" order to stop. It didn't stop coming out until my wage deduction order was approved, which is a "specific" court order stopping all garnishments except for child support.

Good luck!

[elmoze]

Thanks for the input - it really helped.

I just mailed a Challenge to a Garnishment form to the court administrator with all the paperwork. Hopefully, this will be enough to get the funds returned to be (fingers crossed) in a timely manner.