Find Out How to Protect Your Money and Resolve Your Debt with a Wage Garnishment Lawyer

The inevitable has happened. Your creditors have served your bank or employer with a writ of Garnishment, and now they have access to your bank account and paycheck.

What will be your next step? When your available funds are at risk of being taken by your creditors to pay off your debts, it’s important to act quickly.

Read these three tips, recommended by our wage garnishment attorneys at The Wink Law Firm, to ensure you don’t get sued, your money stays with you, and you finally get rid of your debt once and for all.

Step 1: Understand the Law Behind Wage Garnishment

If you stop paying your creditor, there eventually comes a time when they will sue. Although at first it may seem like they are merely trying to threaten you to pay, you can rest assured that somewhere between 6 and 24 months, you’ll no longer receive warnings. You’ll find out that the your creditors have done the following:

• They’ve gone to court: Your creditors have received a court-ordered writ of garnishment to draw from your account or paycheck.
• They make contact: Your bank or employer will notify you that this has occurred.
• They begin taking your money: Your creditor then has the right to garnish your bank account or wages until you’ve paid off your debt.
• They can take more than you might think: A typical creditor in the state of Colorado can take up to 20% of your wages. If your debts are with the IRS, expect 30% to 70%. The Federal Student Aid Office states that student loan companies can take up to 15%. Back-owed child support garnishment runs as high as 50%.

It is important to understand that your bank account or wages will be garnished if your debt is unsecured (as is the case with medical bills or credit cards). If your debt is secured debt, meaning it has a physical asset behind it, such as your house or car, your creditors can foreclose on your home or repossess your car. They will sell your assets and apply the proceeds to your debt. If these sales do not fulfill the amount you owe, they will then garnish your bank account and wages.

Keep in mind that a credit card company, medical bill collection agency, or another unsecured-debt creditor can put a lien on your home, too. Even if you don’t don’t owe a debt tied to a piece of property, they, too, can take possession of your property to collect.

These aren’t just possibilities or warnings. Our Wage Garnishment attorneys at The Wink Law Firm have seen this happen to Denver residents who didn’t take their creditors’ legal rights seriously. Stay ahead of your creditors by taking the next two steps.

Step 2: Understand What You Can Do to Protect Yourself from Wage Garnishment

Ideally, you will recognize before it’s too late that you don’t want to get into a situation where your wages are being garnished. It is much more cost-effective and smart to resolve your debt before it gets to this point. A wage garnishment lawyer through debt settlement or chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy can help. This will stop your creditors from garnishing your wages, and your attorney will help resolve your situation once and for all.

If you’ve already been notified of wage garnishment, it is important to understand what you can do next under Colorado law.

• 80% of your wages are exempt from garnishment in Colorado.
• If you work 30 or fewer hours per week, additional exemptions apply under Colorado law.
• Similar exemptions exist if your salary or wages are equal to the following formula: 30 hours multiplied by the minimum wage, which is $13.65 in Colorado and $18.69 in Denver.
• You have the legal right to protect $2,500 of your money. If your funds come directly from social security payments or Veterans Affairs benefits (including disability), you can potentially exempt all of this money.
• If your creditor does put a lien on your home, you can protect a certain amount of your home’s value when you attempt to sell your home. In Colorado, you can protect $250,000, or $350,000 if you are disabled or over the age of 60. To further help those in need, the $350,000 exemption also applies if there are elderly or disabled people living in your home.
• Most importantly, take note that you only have 10 days to exempt your funds under Colorado law.

You don’t want to take on navigating these exemptions on your own. When you schedule a free consultation with our wage garnishment attorney team at The Wink Law Firm, we can help you throughout the entire process, including finding a solution that will set you on better financial footing.

Step 3: Understand Your Options, Both Before and After Wage Garnishment

Before wage garnishment begins, you’re in an excellent position to negotiate with your creditors. The faster you recognize that your creditors can and will sue, the sooner you can develop an outcome that benefits you the most.

Here are the options that a wage garnishment lawyer at The Wink Law Firm can provide before you are sued:

• If you haven’t yet been garnished you can settle with your creditors for about 50% of your total unsecured debt.
• In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, we can help you completely discharge your debt.
• In Chapter 13 bankruptcy, for those above the income threshold, we can help you discharge your debt on a three-to-five year payment plan.

These are your likely options after you are sued:

• If you decide to opt for debt settlement after you are sued, you may end up paying 60% or more of your debt, as well as additional fees related to your creditors’ lawsuit.
• It is extremely challenging to stop wage garnishment once it has started. Even if you decide to file for bankruptcy after garnishment, you will need time to prepare for bankruptcy. Once you’ve already been sued, you have far less time to take care of this prep work before garnishment begins. Wage garnishment can be extremely hard to halt, once your collectors have begun garnishing. While our firm will help get you the best results no matter the situation, consider taking action before a lawsuit.

Taking an honest look at your financial position before you are sued is the preferable way to go. While The Wink Law Firm can develop a legal strategy to benefit you after you’ve been sued, it’s always a better outcome if you can see the danger ahead and put a stop to it before the situation gets more challenging. That’s how it works with debt. The only time things start getting better is when you put an end to the way you’ve been proceeding and get help.

Protect Yourself with a Wage Garnishment Lawyer Now

If you’re worried about losing control of your finances to suing creditors, you can make a change now and take action to resolve your debt now.

Our wage garnishment attorneys can guide you through the debt settlement process or bankruptcy under Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. We will help you secure an outcome that is far more beneficial than the costs associated with garnishment.

Remember, your creditors don’t exist to have your best interests in mind. The business of lending money is beneficial for them when you pay, as well as when you don’t pay. You need a wage garnishment lawyer on your side to make decisions that benefit you first to provide financial relief, position you for a better future, and stop the never-ending cycle of debt stress and anxiety.

Contact Wink & Wink online today for a free consultation or call us at (303) 410-1720.

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