As anyone who has been faced with wage garnishment knows, it can be one of the most humiliating and demoralizing processes around. For a lender to take legal action against you, and win, and for the settlement to involve that lender using wage garnishment to take a portion of your paycheck each month or each two weeks, is enough to make a person thoroughly unhappy. Here is a possible solution a bankruptcy lawyer might offer should you find yourself faced with wage garnishment.
Chapter 7’s Automatic Stay
Bankruptcy filing under Chapter 7 includes an important provision called the ‘automatic stay.’ The automatic stay is a powerful tool in the bankruptcy process, according to a bankruptcy lawyer; in simple terms, it says that lenders must stop all collection procedures while the bankruptcy proceeding is taking place. This includes foreclosure proceedings, collections, and wage garnishment.
In addition, if you are pressed for time and need the wage garnishment to cease immediately, there is an option for emergency filing. This procedure is slightly more expensive, but will get the automatic stay put in place even faster, resulting in the garnishment stopping even sooner.
After the automatic stay puts a stop to the wage garnishment, the Chapter 7 proceedings will result, the majority of the time, in the outstanding debts being wiped off the books, therefore permanently ending the garnishment. Thus it is often the best option if you cannot find a way to get out from under the debt you have accumulated.
A St. Petersburg bankruptcy lawyer will help you to decide whether filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy to stop wage garnishment is the right path for you to take.