Wage garnishment is the process of a creditor taking money for debt repayment via your job earnings. This process is entirely legal, but it takes time to complete because the creditor must follow due process. If you switch employers and get a new job, it can take longer for garnishment to start.
The Lawsuit
For any garnishment to take place, the creditor must follow due process -- that is, he has to prove you owe the debt and that he is entitled to collect money. Therefore, he has to file a lawsuit against you. Depending on how efficient the courts are and whether you need to reschedule your court appearance, it generally takes one to three months between the date you receive your court summons and the date on which a judge issues a judgment on your case, according to the Fair Debt Collection and Bottom Line Collection Services websites.
Post-Judgment and Writ
Following the judge's decision, you usually have 20 to 30 days to pay what you owe the creditor or make a payment arrangement, according to Ledford & Wu and Get Credit News. If you can't accomplish this, the creditor has the option of filing a motion for wage garnishment. Once the creditor does this, the clerk issues a formal writ of garnishment, which the sheriff issues to the employer involved. This usually doesn't take more than one to two weeks, but again, it depends on court backlogs.
Appeal
Once the court issues and serves the writ to your employer, the employer must follow the order. However, Fair Debt Collections states you usually have two or three weeks to appeal the decision. This requires filing paperwork with the sheriff, which forces the creditor to re-defend his case and makes the judge review the garnishment order. This further delays the garnishment. You likely will see the garnishment take effect in the first paycheck following the garnishment writ receipt if you do not appeal.
The Caveat and Bottom Line
Wage garnishment orders do not apply to a new job by default. This is because every writ of garnishment is served to an employer based on the employment information your provide or the information the creditor already has. If your creditor wants to garnish wages through your new employer, it must get a separate formal writ of garnishment through the court. This means that, even if the original court judgment stands through your employment change, the creditor must repeat a portion of the wage garnishment process to collect if you switch jobs. This can add another one to two months to the entire garnishment process. Because garnishment orders usually are carried out within two to six months of the initial lawsuit filing, it can take up to eight months for garnishment to occur if you switch employers immediately following the initial writ issuance. Furthermore, if you take on a second job and already have a garnishment order in place, your creditor may have to wait until some of your debt is eliminated to file its motion for garnishment at the new employer, as there are limits to how much a creditor may garnish from your wages.
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