How to Use Bankruptcy to Stop a Wage Garnishment

Wage garnishment.  If I were to guess what the number one thing that pushes people past the tipping point of thinking about filing bankruptcy to actually calling me up and moving things forward, I would say it is wage garnishment.

Before a creditor tries to garnish your wages there isn’t a whole lot the creditor can do.  They may call you on the phone and leave you a few snotty messages.  But in the end, until they sue you and get a judgment against you they can’t garnish your paycheck.

Here in Arizona once a judgment is granted a creditor can garnish up to 25% of each of your paychecks.  For most that makes things pretty tight.

So what can you do?  Bankruptcy will stop a wage garnishment in its tracks.

How to Stop Your Wage Garnishment Quickly

When faced with losing a full quarter of your paycheck you need to act quickly.  Typically, when you file a chapter 7 bankruptcy it takes  some time.  The usual bankruptcy filing is nearly 60 pages of information on you and your financial situation.  It takes a while to gather all of the required information.

However, if we need to move quickly, we can.  The bankruptcy court will allow what is called and “emergency” filing.  This is where we file the first three pages of the bankruptcy documents simply to get a case number.  Once you have a case number issued by the court the can no longer try and garnish your wages.

The bankruptcy court then gives you another two weeks to get the rest of the documents filed.

When push comes to shove there are just a few things that need to be done before a bankruptcy case can be filed:

(1)  Provide your name, address, and social security number.

(2)   Complete the required online credit counseling course (takes about an hour)

(3)   Pay your legal fees (click here to learn more about legal fees in bankruptcy)

Once these items have been completed we can get your case filed and stop that garnishment before it even gets started!