If I filed for bankruptcy but my wages are still being garnished how do I make this stop?

Unfortunately, there are several ineffective low-cost services that give poor advise to desperate people. After the filing of your bankruptcy, a Suggestion of Bankruptcy pleading is filed in the state court action. Depending on the county of the court, either the clerk, debtor, or the creditor then files a release of the garnishment. Certain pre-petition garnished funds can be returned. Post-petition garnished funds must be returned. If the creditor fails to promptly return the funds, a motion for turnover of funds can be filed to force the return of the funds.

You should check your bankruptcy petition to determine whether the creditor was listed on the schedules and properly served with notice of your bankruptcy filing.

Maybe the fault is with your employer. Did you inform your payroll department that the wage garnishment was prohibited due to the bankruptcy filing? Some employers require a court order from the court that entered the garnishment order and it can take several weeks for this order to show up.

The first thing I would recommend is to give your employer notice of your bankruptcy and a warning that garnishing your wages is a violation of bankruptcy law. After all, your employer takes the money because it is forced to by a court order - if you notify your employer that it has to stop, then they'll stop (garnishment is a pain for the payroll people anyway - they'd rather not deal with it). Then I would send a letter to the company that got the garnishment demanding the return of any wages taken after your filing date. There are significant penalties for violation of bankruptcy law, most companies don't want to mess with it. If they refuse, then talk to a bankruptcy attorney, since legal fees are paid by the company, you shouldn't have to pay anything.

Sometimes it takes a few weeks to stop the garnishment. There are 3 parties involved (4 counting the creditor): the attorneys who filed the garnishment request, the sheriff's office who handles the paperwork, the employer. When garnishment is started, attorney or unrepresented creditor sends a request to the Sheriff's, the Sheriff's sends a request to employer. To stop the garnishment same thing has to happen again. If there is a bottleneck, it's usually at the Sheriff's office. I've had bad experiences with Los Angeles Sheriff's office - they are backlogged and it's hard to even get a hold of anyone there to talk about it. Get a confirmation from the attorney's office that the request to stop the garnishment has been sent to the Sheriff. If that hasn't been done, then you deal with them but chances are they have done their part because they understand the consequences. If the request has been sent to Sheriff then you're next place to check is Sheriff's Office. You can call them to confirm the request to stop garnishment has been received and ask when the notice will be going out to the employer. Have your case# ready, not the BK, the original lawsuit. The employer has no power to stop the garnishment, even if you provide them with BK notice. Employers can get in trouble if they don't abide by garnishment request so they won't stop a garnishment until they receive a request from the Sheriff. In the worst case scenario I've had a garnishment continue for a month and a half. Of course the debtor received a refund of the money taken since the case filing, like a month or two later. Depending on where the money is at when the carousel stops you will either get a check from Plaintiff's attorney or the money will be sent back to your employer who will pay it out to you according to their payroll: either by separate check or by adding it to the next pay check, or it could be broken out into two: check from counsel & check from employer.

Then you need to get the legal aid service to do something about it. If not, go hire a private attorney. The creditor is in violation of the stay and there are sanctions for that.

Ask them for a garnishment release to be sent to the court and your employer as well as a copy for yourself. Threaten sanctions if they continue to garnish post bankruptcy filing (a violation of the automatic stay). Also figure out how much you were garnished in the 90 days before you filed. If it was over $600 you can get that back as well.