What Is The Basic Information For Use Of Wage Garnishment In California?

When debtors fail to repay their dues, creditors resort to the last option available and that is, wage garnishment. According to the California federal laws, creditors can garnish or take payments directly from the debtor's wages for getting back their dues. Wage garnishment is used as the last resort when the creditor fails to get their money back from the debtor directly. Wage garnishment applies to debtors who are not self-employed but have a steady monthly income from an employer. In California, there are a few basic things, one needs to remember while using wage garnishment. The federal law of the state has put some restrictions on wage garnishment and the percentage amount, a creditor can withdraw directly from the debtor's wage.

What Does Wage Garnishment Mean?

A wage garnishment can be initiated when a debtor fails to repay a creditor even after court orders to do the same. In wage garnishment, the creditor contacts the debtor's employer and asks them to with-hold some amount from the paycheck as a percentage of the impending amount to be paid by the debtor. However, the creditor cannot do so without court's permission.

How Does A Creditor Use Wage Garnishment in California?

Though, it may seem by the above explanation that any creditor can go for wage garnishment, this is not the case. For wage garnishment to be executed, a creditor has to obtain a document from a California court known as the Writ of Execution. This is a certificate that states the amount owed by the debtor to the creditor and allows the creditor to send a levying officer to the debtor's employer, informing him about the issuance of the wage garnishment. In California, the Sheriff is the levying officer.

To finally use wage garnishment, the creditor also needs to get an Earnings Withholding Orders (EWO) from the court, using which the creditor can direct the debtor's employer to with-hold a percentage of the wage.

Amount That Can Be Withheld For Wage Garnishment in California

When a creditor issues for a wage garnishment, he has to keep in mind that a percentage of the wage has to be kept for the debtor to enable him to meet his daily expenses. As such, the California law puts a limit on the amount that can be garnished from the employer. For any work week, a creditor can garnish the lesser of 25% of the disposable earnings or any amount that exceeds the debtor's earning by 30 times the federal hourly minimum wage.

Under the Title III of Consumer Protection Act, even with a lot of debt on his head, a creditor can only ask for a small percentage from the weekly wage of a debtor. All taxes such as federal, state and local taxes, unemployment insurance, social security payments, state employee retirement system and unemployment insurance are however protected against garnishment.

When Creditors Use Wage Garnishment Without Court Orders

Though, it is compulsory for a creditor to get court orders to use wage garnishment, there are certain exceptions when he can directly ask an employer to withhold percentage of the wage for debt repayment. These exceptions include:

• For clearing unpaid income taxes,


• To fulfill court ordered child support,


• Child support arrears, if any,


• Any impending students' loan.

Threat of Employment Termination

A debtor is also protected from the threat of termination of employment, in case the employee gets a wage garnishment notification. An employer cannot discharge a debtor's duty if he has one impending wage garnishment on him. However, the state doesn't protect the debtor if he has more than one wage garnishment on him.

This post is shared by Attorneyforbankruptcy.com, which a leading law firm of California. Here you can have detailed information on wage garnishment in california and debt consolidation in california.