Consumer Law, Warranties Need some advice

[HannahG]

Ok, so I'm in a bit of a situation, or rather, my husband is. He was working for a company that installs vinyl fencing. His boss gave us a personal loan of $1800 so we could move into a house. We signed the title to our car over to him as collateral if we failed to pay him back. As it was, he was taking out $250 every two weeks from my husband's paycheck as payment for that loan.

My husband was just fired from his job a couple days ago, and his boss is refusing to give him his last paycheck because we owe him money. Can he legally do that seeing as the loan was personal and based on collateral and had nothing to do with my husband's employment? I talked to a lawyer yesterday and he gave me some insight saying that legally he cannot withhold my husband's wages, and if he refuses to release those wages by the date we tell him then we can legally take him to court over it. I tried to write down everything that he told me to put into a letter to his boss but I cannot remember everything that he said and I want to make sure that I have all my information correct. Can you help me at all? We live in Arizona.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Ok, so I'm in a bit of a situation, or rather, my husband is. He was working for a company that installs vinyl fencing. His boss gave us a personal loan of $1800 so we could move into a house. We signed the title to our car over to him as collateral if we failed to pay him back. As it was, he was taking out $250 every two weeks from my husband's paycheck as payment for that loan.

My husband was just fired from his job a couple days ago, and his boss is refusing to give him his last paycheck because we owe him money. Can he legally do that seeing as the loan was personal and based on collateral and had nothing to do with my husband's employment? I talked to a lawyer yesterday and he gave me some insight saying that legally he cannot withhold my husband's wages, and if he refuses to release those wages by the date we tell him then we can legally take him to court over it. I tried to write down everything that he told me to put into a letter to his boss but I cannot remember everything that he said and I want to make sure that I have all my information correct. Can you help me at all? We live in Arizona.

I am sorry to hear about your situation. Now understand that I don't have the loan in front of me to see what was written. It sounds to me like the loan is a separate agreement and that the $250 was a sum agreed upon and could certainly represent convenience as opposed to being a tie to the business. On the surface and without more, I don't see any way that the former employer can withhold your husband's wages and the advice of the other lawyer is correct - you can take the ex-boss to court and sue for damages.

Essentially the agreement seems to be that your husband agreed to make payments every two weeks (bi-monthly) and that is what the agreement is until its end. It was never agreed nor is there a right for the creditor to "accelerate" the payments, even if the loan was in the name of the business.

Good luck to you and your husband. I hope this works out well for you.