How to Survive a Wage Garnishment
Finding yourself the subject of assertive collection activity is challenging and oftentimes frustrating. One tool used by debt collectors is a wage garnishment. If you find your wages being garnished you undoubtedly have great concerns about your budget, your financial well-being--indeed, your very ability to make ends meet. You must understand how to survive a wage garnishment. There are strategies to use that permit you the ability to get through a wage garnishment with your own financial house relatively intact.
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Instructions
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Contact the creditor who obtained a wage garnishment immediately. Explain that you are interested in trying to develop a voluntary payment plan with the creditor. If you have been dodging the creditor for an extended period of time, the creditor is not likely to want to negotiate with you. The creditor will take the position that a bird in the hand in the form of a wage garnishment is worth far more than a promise you make.
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Request a reduction in the amount being garnished. Rather than seeking an outright dismissal of a wage garnishment, ask the creditor if an agreement is possible to reduce the amount that is being withheld from your wages. For example, ascertain if your creditor is willing to reduce the amount withheld from each paycheck by half of what the original wage garnishment order permits. Although you will still pay off the balance due to the creditor over time, the impact on each individual paycheck will be significantly reduced.
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Review applicable state and federal laws regarding collections and wage garnishments. Through these laws, determine whether the garnishment itself is properly executed. If a wage garnishment is placed on your paycheck in violation of the law, it will be rescinded. Moreover, the creditor may be precluded from placing a new garnishment on your wages at a future date. Your employer's personnel director can assist you in determining whether the wage garnishment complies with all applicable laws.
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Tips & Warnings
If you are facing the potential garnishment of a significant amount of money, consider engaging the services of an attorney to assist you in negotiating a settlement with the creditor. Although an attorney charges fees for services, in the end obtaining legal representation can be invaluable in assisting you to survive a wage garnishment.
