How to Avoid Wage Garnishment (Legally)

Wage garnishment is done to satisfy debts with creditors, pay taxes to the IRS or to the State and in child support cases. Before anyone can garnish your wages, a court has to authorize the process. The court sends a notification of wage garnishment to you and to your employer once a decision is reached.

People try to avoid a history of wage garnishment because it may raise red flags with future creditors. These are some ideas on how to legally avoid wage garnishment if you are falling behind in debt repayments.

Instructions

1

Understand the nature of all your outstanding debts and be proactive if you think you'll be falling behind in the payment schedules. List your credit cards, loans, mortgages, child support and taxes with their full amounts. You'll need this information for negotiation.

2

Know who your creditors are. Many times mortgages, student's loans and credit card debts are sold to third party companies. Find out who owns the debt presently.

3

Prioritize your creditor's rank. Try to repay all your debts, but there are debts such as taxes that you should place high on the repayment list. Another way to prioritize debts is to know how much room for negotiation the creditor allows.

4

Contact your creditors, starting with the one in first priority. Negotiate a new payment plan. Generally, credit card companies, banks and other financial institutions will rather restructure a debt than go to court for wage garnishment. Contact the IRS, negotiation can be done with tax authorities also. They offer tax relief support and services in many cases.

5

Be honest in dealing with all creditors; give them as much financial information as possible so that you can end up with a new plan that is affordable.

6

Keep your promises in order to avoid wage garnishment. After negotiations and agreement to new payment plans, pay on time. Adhere to the terms of new the contracts.

7

Inform your creditors of any changes in your financial conditions. Let them know ahead of time if you are going to fall behind the new terms, keep them engaged.