Wage garnishment is a legal process that allows creditors to collect on debts directly from your pay before the funds are paid to you. In Minnesota, this process is governed by state laws, ensuring that creditors cannot take more than what is legally permitted from your earnings. Wage garnishment can occur for various reasons, including unpaid debts like child support, taxes, or court judgments.

A creditor who sues a person and gets a court judgement against them can collect the money that the person owes the creditor through a garnishment of the person’s wages. To do so, the creditor can serve a summons on the person’s employer directing them to withhold their wages to be paid to the creditor.

Wage garnishment is a very serious matter because so many Minnesotans live paycheck-to-paycheck. About half of Minneapolis families cannot pay a $400 emergency expense. The really bad news is that this figure is actually lower than it was a few years ago! As outlined below, Minnesota has very aggressive wage garnishment laws. As a result, after just one or two missed payments, many people are caught in a financial vice.

Just like it does in home foreclosure and many other situations, bankruptcy gives families both short-term and long-term solutions to wage garnishment issues. In this way, families really do get the fresh financial start which they deserve and the Bankruptcy Code guarantees.

Wage garnishment is often one of the most pressing concerns for our potential clients in Maple Grove, Minnesota. They want to know if creditors can garnish their wages, and if so, when it will happen and how much they can take. Unfortunately, under Minnesota state law, creditors can garnish your wages because creditors have the right to seize any available non-exempt property, and that includes a portion of your wages. But there are things you can do to prevent or stop wage garnishments, and we will discuss the collection process and how you can stop it below.