Garnishment just curious wage garnishment law

[Crafter16]

I was wondering what are the laws on a garnishment in place concerning what type of income can be garnished. I have had my work income garnished and state refunds used to pay this creditor off that has this garnishment order. I have no problem when they garnished my paychecks or kept my state refunds that was fine. However, just last week my bank account was garnished for every penny in it all of which were child support payments I had received for my children not my income their income I use on my kids from their fathers. Is it legal to garnish child support payments received as I am the custodial parent in this. This garnishment is for an old credit card that I have tried to set up a payment arrangement via email with no response from the defendant in this matter before it went to court.

 

[adjusterjack]

Is it legal to garnish child support payments received as I am the custodial parent in this.

Once the money is in your account, it's just money. There are apparently no exemptions for child support payments that go into your account.

This garnishment is for an old credit card that I have tried to set up a payment arrangement via email with no response from the defendant in this matter before it went to court.

You mean the plaintiff. You're the defendant. Anyway, you had plenty of opportunity to make payments (not talk about making payments) before you were sued, when you were sued, and even after there was a judgment.

The reason that judgment creditors garnish wages, intercept tax refunds and levy bank accounts without giving the defendant the time of day is because the defendant never made any effort to pay or just offered such small payments that the creditor figured that other methods would catch bigger fish.

If you want to prevent this kind of thing in the future, don't keep any money in banks and reduce your withholding so that you don't get a refund at the end of the year, though there isn't anything you can do about wage garnishment.

The problem with letting this judgment debt fester is that no matter how much money they are able to take from you, a good part of it goes to court costs, attorney fees, and interest so the debt never really gets paid off.

By the way, as soon as your next child support payment is due to come in, they will jump on your bank account again, and every month thereafter if you don't do something ASAP about making other arrangements.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

If you're seeking protections that can be in place for certain types of payments you need to avail yourself properly of these protections. Most people have separate accounts with designations on them for a variety of reasons, just like different businesses have their own separate bank accounts. Let's assume your bank gets another garnishment order for money that would be exempt. How is the bank supposed to know that the money in the account is exempt? And how much? It is just a pile of money in your name.

 

[cynthiag]

I used to work with garnishments of bank accounts, and the rule was that if we received a garnishment we had to take the funds from any account that was listed under that person's Social Security Number as the primary accountholder. As others have said, once the money is in your account, it's just money. It doesn't matter where it came from.

 

[adjusterjack]

It doesn't matter where it came from.

Yes, it does. Recent federal law requires banks to determine if any social security benefits (or some other government benefits) have been direct deposited within two months of the garnishment order.

Anything else is fair game.