Stopping Wage Garnishment

[samson420]

Is there a way to prevent wages from being garnished?

Income is at about 2k a month, a total of about 20k in debt.

The first creditor seemed to have started a motion towards a judgment on a 7k account.

Also the house was just foreclosed on about 3 months ago.

I live in AZ. . . . . I really would like to know how to stop from garnishment taking place. Even if it is a reduction in income.

[forgotten]

AZ allows for 25% of your net pay to be garnished. If you can show a hardship a judge can lower it to 15%.

Social security and child support are exempt, as well as weekly earnings of 30x minimum wage.

So if you want to avoid it all together you would need a minimum wage job and work less than 30 hours per week (or a job at 2x min wage and only work 15 hours).

[samson420]

No Social security and child support, just unsecured BS.

What if your rent alone is 550 Bucks?

Can they garnish below a living expense threshold?


Just rent, food and car insurance will still be at least 800 Bucks a month. Can they go bellow that?

[MSbklawyer]

No Social security and child support, just unsecured BS.

What if your rent alone is 550 Bucks?

Can they garnish below a living expense threshold?


Just rent, food and car insurance will still be at least 800 Bucks a month. Can they go bellow that?

They take 25% unless your state has tougher restrictions than the feds.

Can't pay your rent AND feed your kids after they take their cut? If you're looking for sympathy or compassion from one of these worms, you're going to a dry well. They'll say you should have thought of that before you made all those charges.

[jlmaca]

Is there a way to prevent wages from being garnished?

Income is at about 2k a month, a total of about 20k in debt.

The first creditor seemed to have started a motion towards a judgment on a 7k account.

Also the house was just foreclosed on about 3 months ago.

I live in AZ. . . . . I really would like to know how to stop from garnishment taking place. Even if it is a reduction in income.

Yes there is a way! You could file for BK. That would stop any wage garnishments. If you have 20K in debt and don't file, the debt will follow you everywhere and so will the phone calls, being sued, court judgements etc etc. Do you intend to pay this money back? Payment plans? That will also stop any garnishment.

[frogger]

They take 25% unless your state has tougher restrictions than the feds.

Can't pay your rent AND feed your kids after they take their cut? If you're looking for sympathy or compassion from one of these worms, you're going to a dry well. They'll say you should have thought of that before you made all those charges.

That's right. But then, you could always do like so many others do and just quit your job. That stops the garnishment for a time too.

[samson420]

Alright here are 100% of the facts. . . .

This is my GF. I just filed for a Chapter 7 and am now free and clear.

She has about 20k in unsecured BS. This was inc rued by her previous relationship. But, all of this is under her name. She also just had a foreclosure.


She wants to go back to school for a extended period of time. She is serious about going back to school.


She still needs to work. I can not afford everything on my own and don't really want to try.

I am thinking if she works part time hours she can get away with not paying until she is finished with school and the statute of limitations has kicked in.

In AZ it is 6 years for them to collect on a debt.


I just can not figure out how little does she have to make to get away without being garnished.


A BK with 20k is a joke to me.

[forgotten]

In AZ it is 6 years for them to collect on a debt.

They have 6 years to file suit on the debt and obtain a judgement (which they need before they can garnish anyway). The judgement is good for 5 years and can be renewed an unlimited amount of times.

[HHM]

Why doesn't she just file for BK. BK is NOT going to affect her ability to go to school or get school loans (although she should think twice about incurring such debt).

Waiting out the SOL is always a dumb move. 1. it never works, 2. it doesn't stop collection efforts.

I don't think you can rule out filing BK over $20K. Especially if she is going stop paying. You cannot say that a certain amount of debt is objectively too small to file BK over. A person earning only $40,000 gross per year with $20,000 in unsecured debt is a PRIME bankruptcy candidate. Reason being, that person is not earning enough to pay living expenses, service the debt, and achieve longer term financial goals like saving for retirement, so BK is the ONLY way to get out from under the debt.

As far as figuring out how little she can earn, here is the form for AZ for calculating exempt wages

http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/justiceCourts/docs/G-NonexemptEarnStatement.pdf

Essentially, she could earn no more than $217.50 per week to have 0% wages garnished.

[forgotten]

Waiting out the SOL if always a dumb move. 1. it never works, 2. it doesn't stop collection efforts.

How true... I was still being passed around from collection agency to collection agency on a debt from 1995. Sure, I had an SOL affirmitive defence if anyone tried to sue me but they didn't stop them from trying collection and magically changing the date of last activity to put it back on my credit report.

I actually hadn't heard about it in about a year before I filed, I had forgotten about it so it obviously wasn't on my schedules. They managed to find out I filed and filed a claim with the court anyway.

So no, they don't ever truely go away.

[jlmaca]

A BK with 20k is a joke to me.

Not sure I would agree. How many creditors are included in the 20k? How important is her credit going forward? How much time does she have to be dealing with the law suits, court appearances etc? Personally I think this is a nightmare waiting to happen. With a foreclosure her credit is already trashed so why not file BK and be done with it? What is the downside of a BK here? I'm not pro BK just wondering.

[HHM]

Not sure I would agree. How many creditors are included in the 20k? How important is her credit going forward? How much time does she have to be dealing with the law suits, court appearances etc? Personally I think this is a nightmare waiting to happen. With a foreclosure her credit is already trashed so why not file BK and be done with it? What is the downside of a BK here? I'm not pro BK just wondering.

Good point, what exactly is the downside to filing BK. If she goes the SOL route, her credit is trashed for at least 6 years. If she goes the BK route, her credit will recover in about 2 years.

[samson420]

As far as the BK route, there is also kind of an issue. She will need to drop her income for 6 months before she will be able to file.

In AZ if you make over 44k per married couple a BK is not going to happen unless you have special circumstances(I.E. Over median monthly debt to current income).

So in her case, she currently makes almost that alone.


I have considered this option for her advise: Drop the income for 6 months, file then move on.


But, 20k just seems like it is not worth it. She can settle on all of this for most likely around 15 or so k.

The BK alone will cost a bit to complete. . . . .

There is a total of 4 creditors involved in all of her debt.

[HHM]

Something is not adding up

First, the median income for a household of 2 in AZ is $56,894. If she really is over the median, then why is she having a problem paying down here debt. If she has $10K-12K to settle, why doesn't she just pay this debt down. I guess I am not understanding the pain here. What is, or is causing, financial distress. Granted, if she is earning around $40K gross, and has $20K in debt, that is a high ratio and she is probably a good BK candidate. I think she should speak to a lawyer, no offense samson, something is not adding up, and I am not sure you should be the one advising her.

[DebtHater]

I'm confused too.

In your first post you said the income is $2000 a month. Then in a more recent post you said she's making $44,000 a year. If she is making $44K then she should be taking home well over $2K a month.

If she does indeed make $44K a year with $20K in debt she should be able to pay it down with just adjusting her lifestyle.