There could be numerous reasons for someone in California to have their wages garnished, but do you have any options to stop a Wage Garnishment in California? Well, depending on your situation, having your reach garnished could put you in financial hardship.
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So we built a free Wage Garnishment in California calculator to help folks see what their options are to stop it, compare pros and cons of each option, and estimate the cost based on their personalized data.
We understand that you may be feeling overwhelmed and one of the most important things to do is understand how to stop it as it may be you know debilitating and so we build a Wage Garnishment in California calculator that’ll help you understand how much you may be garnished and if you’re currently being garnished, determining whether that is the correct amount.
Sometimes folks will first hear about it from their employer or maybe just seeing something getting pulled out of their page, and so they’re curious, okay are they pulling too much are they pulling the right amount and so that’s why we built the calculator as well as helping folks understand the options to stop a garnishment so that if you’re trying to gauge what they may start garnishing you for whether they’re actually garnishing the right amount and finally helps understand what the different ways to stop it.
Options to stop Wage Garnishment in California
when it comes to stopping a Wage Garnishment in California, there are, unfortunately, a limited number of options as, at this point, the court has already issued an order for an unpaid
debt; however, there are options to consider
Filing bankruptcy
One option to stop a garnishment is filing a bankruptcy so First Option to Stop a Wage Garnishment in California there is the liquidation bankruptcy known as Chapter 7 which can provide immediate relief from garnishment and even other unsecured debt in to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in California.
you do need to pass the Chapter Seven means test so there are income requirements based on your household size and the state reside in in this case California so it’ll help you see you know the number of people based on your household size and the annual income threshold and so with the means test briefly, I’ll just touch on from a high level how it works.
You, as a household, need to be below it to pass the first part of the means test. Now, if you are not below it and you find that you’re above it with an attorney and seeing if you’re able to qualify still to be above the media now I will say for more up-to-date figures though for the means test you can always just take our free chapter setting calculator to estimate the qualification and cost. I just want to file.
In chapter Seven, you can take the calculator. The calculator will estimate whether you’re able to qualify for a seven and what the cost actually looks like based on your zip code and your personalized data; you don’t even need to put an email address in to see your results, so you should be able to take the calculator and get the results to see if you qualify with the most updated information as well now with the chapter 7 there is the filing fee, and so the chapter 7 filing fee in California is 338, but you actually may be entitled to have it waived if you find that you’re under the fee poverty guidelines.
File an Exemption
so one other option you could try to do especially if either it doesn’t make sense to file bankruptcy because of the debt amount or any reason or if you want to try another option first you could potentially try to file an exemption through the court.
Second Option to Stop a Wage Garnishment in California that’ll look like is you may be able to reach out to your local courthouse and see if you may be eligible for any exemptions, for example, you may be able to file a head of household exemption which could limit how much they’re able to withhold from your paycheck it just really depends. so they would have more information on that and you can kind of reach out to them and see if you’re eligible.
California Wage Garnishment Laws
So now I want to touch on what the Wage Garnishment in California laws look like so in California, there should be a limit on the amount of earnings that can be withheld from a single paycheck now off course depending on the state it is generally based on disposable earnings and so the Wage Garnishment in California is generally based on the calculation of how much to behold after you have figured out the employees disposable earnings and the applicable minimum wage.
so this is what it looks like now the Wage Garnishment in California amount is calculated in a certain way, and so this is kind of how I’ll phrase it, and this is how you may be able to calculate so you’re going to calculate how much to withhold after you know they figured out what the employees disposable earnings so new in this case what are your disposable earnings, and what the applicable minimum wage is, and then you can calculate how much to withhold from each paycheck.
So the maximum amount to with hold is going to be the lesser of two amounts either amount one, which is 25 of the Disposable earnings for the week or amount to 50 of the difference between the employee’s disposable earnings for that week and the the applicable minimum wage for that, so if that’s not confusing which it may be feel free to give us a call we can go into detail a little bit more about that but that’s from a high-level kind of what the garnishment laws look like and so, with that said, I want to help you understand what the process looks like behind all of this now when it comes to a wage garnishment.
Wage Garnishment process in California
Process of Wage Garnishment in California it really depends on the type of debt actually being collected as there’s actually potentially specific procedures. so with that, all said, though, the process is generally similar across the board for collecting unpaid unsecured debt, so let’s kind of get into what the process looks to reach, you know, a wage garnishment for something like that now the first thing they’re going to have to do is most likely obtain a judgment against you.
Wage garnishments don’t happen overnight right, and so, fortunately, there are checks and balances put in place to protect both the debtor and the credit her from doing anything ,the process may look a bit different as they may not need actually to have a court order to withhold your earnings, but let’s focus on, you know, regular traditional unsecured debt, so the first step to obtaining a judgment is through a debt collection lawsuit.
The Creditor will need to serve you properly for any unpaid unsecured debt, so that’s probably going to include credit cards, medical bills, some personal loans payday loans, of course, and things of that nature, so once you’ve received the sum, and you should see a few things first, the facts of the case are right, and so you should see a summary of the law a description of the debt and the exact the amount that you owe, and so most times you should actually have about 30 days to respond, but it should stay what that on the summons now.
Let’s say you know The Creditor has enough documentation to provide sufficient proof right, and so they have enough proof that you owe the debt, default judgment, so with the judge’s Judgment, the Creditor now has the choice of whether they want to pursue further legal action by maybe requesting a wage garnishment order so that is The next step here in the process is actually obtaining a Wage Garnishment in California order.
we’ve actually touched on what it looks like to obtain a judgment I want to kind of go through what the next step looks like, and kind of what it looks like to obtain a wage garnishment order, so I just alluded to with the Judgment that The Creditor is now able to potentially request a wage garnishment order, so here’s what that looks like the first
- Thing is the Creditor is going to request a writ of execution from the court; the next thing is there’s going to be a garnishment packet served
- To your employer now once the employer has received the garnishment packet, you may actually start to see your wages being garnished probably, you know, in the first paycheck you’ve received 10 days
- After the service, so once your employer has received the garnishment packet, you may actually start to see your wages being garnished in the first paycheck you receive, which is about 10 days after
- The date of being served so your employer may need to provide you with a copy of the garnishment order. and so you should be able to challenge this order, but you may only have around 10 days to ask for any potential exemptions now.
Sometimes, folks are not even aware that they are being garnished. Who’s garnishing what the balance is for, and for many, many reasons, unfortunately, so before I go too much further,
I want to Steps to Finding Out Who is Garnishing Your Wages in California help you figure out where to go if you either you don’t know who’s garnishing your wages, or you’re not sure the balance they’re garnishing you for I’ve actually spoken with more and more folks who’ve unfortunately been caught off guard by a recent garnishment from their wages, most times they first heard about it from being notified by their employer or they just noticed a portion of their paycheck was being taken out.
So, suppose you do fall into this category. In that case, I want to help you understand a few simple steps that may help you actually answer those questions and get a little bit more understanding, of course, if you already know who’s garnishing your wages and the total balance. Feel free to skip
the next part here covers your options to resolve it as well, which I touched on earlier, but if you don’t know who’s current wages are or what the balance is you know here are some steps to take if you need more information. So one step could be, you know, it’s depending on everyone’s situation, but one step could be reaching out to payroll and see if they have any information on who submitted the garnishment order, most likely them or someone within your employer has information or the documents that they were served now once you know who is garnishing your wages.
you should be able to call them directly to get the information on the balance, so once you have an idea of the law firm that’s handling the account, you could potentially reach out to them and get an the idea of the balance when it started, how much they want if there are any offers to resolve.
If that doesn’t work for any reason you could potentially reach out to the courthouse and see if they’re able to look up your case if you call the local courthouse they may have the case information regarding the Judgment and the garnishment issued, of course there are no promises on any of these, but those could be options to explore now if If both of those options don’t work, you may be able to check your credit report and see if there are any outstanding debts that it may be in relation to so if you have a medical bill from four years ago
In collections, and you haven’t paint on it, and your wages are being garnished, and you look in the credit report, and you see, there’s a medical bill in collections; well, it could be that, but you know those are things to check out now the multiple questions here Which Option Should You Do? is which options should you do now with all that to say, you know, ultimately it’s up to you.
However, I would encourage you to take our Wage Garnishment calculator as that will help you compare your options the cost, the pros and cons to handling a potential garnishment as I do understand that it can be overwhelming.