When a person rents a property, he will generally sign a contract in which he agrees to pay a set amount of money over a set period of time. If the person fails to do this, then the creditor can go to court and seek the issuance of a judgment against him. In Georgia, landlords can theoretically receive a garnishment order against a debtor, although this rarely happens.
Renting
When a person agrees to rent a space, she also agrees to pay the landlord a set amount of money over a set period of time. If the tenant fails to uphold her end of the bargain, then the landlord may be able to take the person to court. If the judge finds that the tenant does indeed owe the money she agreed to pay the landlord, he will issue a civil judgment certifying this.
Garnishments
Once a civil judgment has been issued, the landlord will have a number of ways in which she can collect the rental. In Georgia, as in most other states, the landlord may attempt to garnish the money from the tenant. Garnishment can occur only with the permission of a civil judge. A judge must first issue a garnishment order that the landlord can serve on the tenant's employer.
Georgia Law
Georgia rules related to garnishment hew relatively closely to federal laws regarding garnishment. There are few restrictions on what kind of debt garnishment can be applied to, meaning that a tenant can use garnishment to collect back rent. However, federal law caps the maximum amount of garnishment that a debtor can have taken out of his income stream at any one time at 25 percent. Also, some types of income, such as Social Security payments, can't be garnished.
Considerations
Few landlords will go to the trouble of garnishing a tenant's wages, unless the amount of money owed to the landlord makes it financially worthwhile. The process of garnishing a tenant's wages can be long and expensive. In many cases, a landlord will simply evict the tenant and write off the losses or attempt to collect them in another way besides garnishment.
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