How long does it take a creditor to start a wage garnishment?

Question

My brother had a car loan ($10,000) that he couldnt pay on anymore and had it repo'd. After trying to work with them, they decided to cut it off and take further actions. He hasnt received any letters but the last call was a wage garnishment threat. I know they have to take him to court and get a judgement first. He wants to know since in CA they can take up to 25% of his wages - can he fight that lower??? and HOW LONG does it take from the start of the last phone call to actually going to court???

He is not running from it, but wants to let his employer know ahead of time so they are not suprised and he also wants to lower his withholdings since he has other bills as well and needs to survive.

Answer 1

I'm not sure of the exact procedure in California...but in many states it goes like this:

1) Plaintiff files lawsuit. You must be served and the court date is set. This can take 1-2 months depending on how efficient your court is. You can stall it another month by requesting another court date due to scheduling problems.

2) The judgment is issued, and you have a certain amount of time to pay. Generally this is 20-30 days.

3) If not paid, plaintiff returns to court for order to garnish wages. This must be served on the employer, and you then have a time period to appeal it to the court (2-3 weeks).

It is my understanding that garnishment schedules are pretty much set and you can't get them lowered. You can, however, file a request for installment payments with the court. If approved, you will pay this amount outside of garnishment, and while you are making payments the plaintiff is prevented from garnishing your wages. In most states they can not go after bank accounts for file liens. But as soon as you miss a payment, the judge will grant a garnishment and you will not get it overturned.

When you request installment payments, be prepared to have proof of your income and expenses.

Answer 2

First of all, the creditor should have sold off the car by now and some of that money should have come back in, so he shouldn't owe the entire $10K.

The first thing they have to do is obtain a judgment against your brother. Have they done this? If not, they're probably more talk than not. Generally collectors will only come after you if they think you can pay but aren't willing to. If your brother doesn't have the money, they're just going to run up further expenses on the loan by filing with the court, etc.

Don't get me wrong...they certainly have the right to do that, and they might do that, but I wouldn't start telling my employer anything until such time as the creditor obtained a judgment against me.

Once they've obtained a judgment, you'll have a certain amount of time on which to pay the judgment, and then if you don't, they can start garnishment proceedings. So I wouldn't worry about getting garnished until they sued me and got a judgment if I were him.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Even after deducting the auction price for the car from the outstanding balance, it's probably still $10K or maybe more with all the fees. They will definitely take him to court for that amount.

Your brothe will get a summons and go to court first. The creditor will get a judgment and turn that into a garnishment. Your brother can try to get a lesser amount but it's more likely the garnishment will be 25%,

Your brother would have been better off to have sold the car and paid off the difference.

Answer 4

long creditor start wage garnishment

Answer 5

I think that it depends on how backed up the courts are with other things.