Help!!!

[Natalie1706]

New to the board and have a few questions about garnishment. My husband and I are filing chapter 7. We have an appointment with a lawyer on Thursday. The retainer to get court papers filed is $500 dollars, so we are scraping and scraping to come up with that. I know it doesn't sound like much but hell when your broke it's A LOT! Anyway, we received court papers in the mail on Saturday for wage garnishment for $3000. It was for my husband, but they had his previous employer on the paperwork. Will they re file once they find out that he no longer works there? How long does it usually take for a wage garnishment to go into effect? The reason that I am asking is because it will take about a month for us to get the $500 dollars necessary to get the paperwork filed and get a case number. I called the creditor's lawyer this morning and they told me there was nothing they could do to stop it until they got the case number. Any insight you can give me on garnishment would be helpful. I am new at this whole game.

[rfassett]

The creditor, and hopefully you did not tell them this morning, will file with the new employer just as soon as they find out who the new employer is. If husband left the old employer on good terms, old employer may just send it to you, may sit on it, or may send it back to the creditor via slow mail with the simple message that your husband is no longer employed by him. If husband left on bad terms, the old employer may just forward it to the new employer via fax. The legalities of that action notwithstanding, the damage will be done quickly and the new employer could start the withholding with the next paycheck. My suggestion would be to beg, borrow or steel, well maybe not steel, but beg or borrow the $500 (which by the way sounds way low) and get it done. Or make the decision to go pro se and you could get the number as soon as you file the initial "emergency" filing along with the requisite filing fee.

[magyar123]

The creditor, and hopefully you did not tell them this morning, will file with the new employer just as soon as they find out who the new employer is. If husband left the old employer on good terms, old employer may just send it to you, may sit on it, or may send it back to the creditor via slow mail with the simple message that your husband is no longer employed by him. If husband left on bad terms, the old employer may just forward it to the new employer via fax. The legalities of that action notwithstanding, the damage will be done quickly and the new employer could start the withholding with the next paycheck. My suggestion would be to beg, borrow or steel, well maybe not steel, but beg or borrow the $500 (which by the way sounds way low) and get it done. Or make the decision to go pro se and you could get the number as soon as you file the initial "emergency" filing along with the requisite filing fee.

That is IF the old employer knows where he is working now. And by the way, the new employer does not have to comply with a garnishment order THAT THE OLD EMPLOYER is faxing to them. The garnishment order has to actually name the current employer.