A wage garnishment stops the moment a bankruptcy petition is filed. The automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 takes effect on filing, and your employer's payroll office has to stop withholding as soon as it's notified. When the facts allow, we can file within a day or two. Money garnished in the 90 days before filing can sometimes be recovered if it exceeds $600.
How a garnishment happens in California
Your paycheck came in short on Friday. Nobody warned you, or the warning was a lawsuit you didn't answer, served at an old address. That's the usual story.
A creditor can't garnish wages in California without a judgment. They sue, you have 30 days to respond after service, and if nobody responds they take a default. The judgment is good for ten years and renewable, and it accrues interest. For consumer judgments under $200,000 entered from 2023 on, that rate is 5%; older or larger judgments run at 10%. The creditor then gets a writ, the sheriff serves an earnings withholding order on your employer, and payroll starts sending up to 20% of your disposable earnings to the creditor. The percentage is lower if you're close to minimum wage.
Twenty percent of take-home for a Los Angeles rent is not survivable for long, and the balance barely moves, because the interest keeps running.
What filing does to it
The petition is filed electronically with the Central District. Within minutes it has a case number, and at that moment federal law prohibits every creditor from continuing to collect. The garnishment is collection. It's stayed.
In practice, there's a gap between the law and your payroll department. We send the notice of filing to the sheriff, the judgment creditor's lawyer and your employer's payroll contact the same day, and we follow up by phone. Most Los Angeles employers stop withholding on the next cycle. A paycheck that's already been processed may go out short one more time, and that money comes back to you when the sheriff releases it.
The judgment debt itself is usually discharged at the end of the case. Judgments on credit cards, medical bills, personal loans and deficiency balances are unsecured debt, and Chapter 7 wipes them out. The garnishment doesn't just pause. It ends.
How fast we can file
A careful Chapter 7 takes two to four weeks to prepare. A garnishment doesn't give you that, so there's a faster version. An emergency petition can be filed with the basic petition, the creditor list and the credit counseling certificate, and the full schedules follow within 14 days. That's a legitimate way to file, and Naomi has done it many times, but it only works if two things are in place.
First, the credit counseling course. It's online, it takes about an hour, and the certificate has to exist before the petition goes in. If you call in the morning, you can have it done by lunch.
Second, the attorney fee has to be paid before filing, because an unpaid fee would be discharged with everything else. For a garnishment case that usually means the $1,850 flat fee comes in over a couple of days rather than a couple of months. We'll be honest about whether the timing works. If the next paycheck is Friday and it's Wednesday, it often does.
Getting garnished money back
A garnishment isn't a voluntary payment, and the Bankruptcy Code treats it like any other transfer to a creditor in the 90 days before filing. If the total taken from your wages in that window is more than $600, the trustee can recover it as a preference, and if the money is exempt in your hands, it can come back to you rather than going to the estate.
Whether it's worth pursuing depends on the amount and the trustee. A $900 recovery may not interest a panel trustee; a $4,000 one usually does. We raise it at the 341 meeting when the numbers justify it, and we choose the exemption system with that recovery in mind.
Bank levies: the same problem with a faster clock
The same judgment that lets a creditor garnish wages lets them levy a bank account, and a levy is worse. There's no 20% ceiling. The sheriff serves the bank, the bank freezes whatever is in the account up to the judgment amount, and the money is gone in about ten days unless you claim an exemption or file.
Filing stops the levy the same way it stops the garnishment, and a levy over $600 within 90 days before filing is recoverable on the same theory. If you found out this morning that your account is frozen, stopping a bank levy is the page to read, and the number to call is at the bottom of it.
Chapter 13, repeat filings, and when to leave it alone
Most garnishment cases are Chapter 7. A Chapter 13 stops a garnishment just as fast, and it's the answer when the judgment is for a debt Chapter 7 won't discharge, such as recent taxes or a support arrearage, or when the person being garnished also needs to save a house. Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 covers how we choose.
One trap. If you had a bankruptcy case dismissed in the last year, the stay in a new case lasts only 30 days unless we file a motion to extend it, and after two dismissals in a year there's no stay at all without a motion granted first. Tell us about prior filings before we file, not after.
And sometimes the right move is no filing. A garnishment from a single $3,000 judgment, with no other debt, might be better settled than discharged. About one in seven callers hear that from us. The fees are on what bankruptcy costs in Los Angeles, and our Beverly Hills bankruptcy practice handles garnishment filings in all five divisions of the Central District, from Santa Barbara to Riverside, without anyone driving to Wilshire Boulevard.
I've filed a petition at 4:40 on a Thursday with payroll running Friday morning, and it worked. What made it work wasn't speed on my end. It was the client sitting in her car outside a Ralphs finishing the credit counseling course on her phone so the certificate existed before I hit file. That course is the bottleneck on every emergency case. If you're reading this with a short paycheck in your hand, the first useful thing you can do, before you call anyone, is find an approved provider and start clicking.
Questions people ask about this
How fast does wage garnishment stop after filing bankruptcy?
Legally, the instant the petition is filed. Practically, when your employer's payroll office receives notice, which we send the same day. Most Los Angeles employers stop withholding on the next pay cycle. A check already in process may go out short once more, and that money is released back to you.
Can I get back wages that were already garnished?
Sometimes. If more than $600 was taken in the 90 days before filing, it's a recoverable preference, and if the funds are exempt in your hands they can come back to you. Whether it's worth pursuing depends on the amount and the trustee's interest.
How much can they garnish in California?
Generally up to 20% of disposable earnings, meaning what's left after required deductions. If your earnings are near minimum wage, the percentage drops or goes to zero. There is no similar ceiling on a bank levy, which can take the whole balance.
Do I have to pay the whole attorney fee before you file?
For Chapter 7, yes, because an unpaid fee would be discharged in the case. In a garnishment emergency the $1,850 usually comes in over a few days rather than a few months. The court's $338 filing fee can be paid in installments or waived if your income qualifies.
Will the judgment go away, or just the garnishment?
Both, in most cases. A judgment on a credit card, medical bill, personal loan or deficiency balance is unsecured debt and is discharged in Chapter 7. Judgments for support, recent taxes or fraud survive, and those situations usually call for a Chapter 13 plan.
Talk it through with the attorney
If your next paycheck is days away, call (310) 555-0184 now rather than booking online. Naomi will tell you on the phone whether an emergency filing can beat the payroll date.