When a tenant owes a landlord money for unpaid rent, there are a number of methods the landlord can use to pursue payment. For one, the landlord can seek an eviction of the tenant, which may compel him to pay. In some cases, a landlord may be able to garnish the person's wages. However, a landlord can almost never garnish a person's income taxes or a refund stemming from their payment.
Unpaid Rent
When a person owes rent to his landlord stemming from a lease, this constitutes a legal debt obligation. While there are many situations in which a person may not have to pay rent -- say, if the conditions of the residence are substandard -- such nonpayment will have to be deemed permissible in court. Most jurisdictions have specialized housing courts to offer judgment in disputes between landlords and tenants.
Garnishments
While each housing court works differently, only sometimes is a tenant be ordered to make a payment to the landlord to cover unpaid rent. Other times, the tenant is merely evicted. However, if the tenant is ordered to pay a debt, then the landlord may seek its collection like any other debt. In many jurisdictions, wage garnishment is acceptable if the debtor continues to not pay after being ordered to do so.
Income Taxes
While a person can have his wages garnished in certain instances, he cannot have the taxes that he pays to the government garnished, ever. A payment that a person makes to the government cannot be intercepted by an outside party, even if the person owes the outside party money. Garnishments can only be served by employers, not by people receiving payments from the debtor.
Michigan Law
In addition, income tax refunds provided by state governments to individuals, as well as refunds provided by the federal government, cannot be garnished by private debt collectors -- except in Michigan. Michigan allows private parties to petition the state government to set aside a refund if the person receiving the refund has an outstanding debt that has been certified by a court.
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