How To Stop A Garnishment In Virginia

by John G. Merna, Esq.

How To Stop A Garnishment In Virginia.

A non-governmental creditor with a judgment in Virginia can garnish up to 25 percent of your wages and all of the money in your savings and checking account.

The steps and services outline on this website only provide eligible individuals who follow the proper legal procedure limited ability to recover garnished funds.  This power is capped by the amount of homestead exemption that is available to the individual.

THESE LEGAL PROCEDURES DO NOT STOP THE GARNISHMENT.  

Every time your recover your garnished funds you use your homestead exemptions and the creditor has two things to his advantange.  One, he has confirmed that he has located where you work or bank and therefore where to get your money.  And two, he can repeat the garnishment indefinitely forcing you to exhaust your homestead and ultimately making you turn over funds once your homestead is exhausted.

SO HOW DO YOU STOP THE GARNISHMENT PERMANENTLY?

The unfortunate reality of stopping a garnishment is that you only have two options:
1) Attack the original judgment which would require you to request the case be reopened and require legitimate grows for challenging the legitimacy of the judgment being entered in the first place. And 2) qualify and file a bankruptcy which will immediately shut down the garnishment permanently.

Option number one is generally never a good option for two reasons: 1) The debt is legitimately owed and while there may have been a defect in serving notice of the lawsuit reopening the case will in most instances result in the same outcome, a judgment and ability to garnish. And 2) the cost of reopening a case is equivalent to the cost of filing a bankruptcy which not only eliminate the garnishment and the debt owed but eliminates or deals with all your debt.

SO WHY CONSIDER BANKRUPTCY?

Look at your credit realistically.  If you are being garnished several things are true: 1) You were not able to pay the debt. 2) You were not able to cut a deal you could afford with this creditor. 3) Your credit score is undoubtedly very poor due to the non-payment of the debt leading up to the judgment and the recording of the judgment on your credit report. 4) Generally, people don’t have only one debt they can’t pay while paying all others. In otherwords, it is highly likely the garnishment is just a “symptom” of your overall “debt difficulties” and that you have other unpaid debt which are lining up to do the same thing and continuing to hammer your credit.  

This cycle of collections and negative reporting by creditors just have you in suspending in “credit hell”.  You cannot move forward with improving your finances. You are throwing good money at old debt, which would be better spent to build your future by buying a house, getting better interest rates, reducing your stress, etc. And while you have been attempting to pay your creditors as best as you can your credit has not improved and will not improved.  You will pay tens of thousand of dollars over years to try and get out of your bad credit situation, only to emerge years later with bad credit.

WHAT A BANKRUPTCY CAN DO FOR YOU.

A bankruptcy can help you buy a house in three years. Protect your property, including wages, your house, and your car.  It can eliminate this cycle of attacks by creditors’ phone calls, threats, garnishments, harassments.

Bankruptcy is a powerful recovery tool that too many people are afraid of due to false information and myths provided by well-meaning but uninformed friends and family.  Be smart. At least investigate what it can do by scheduling a free consultation today with an experienced and compassionate bankruptcy attorney.  Call today and get the secrets on how to get a fresh start tomorrow! Click to find out more about bankruptcy or call 800-662-8813 to schedule a free telephone consultation.