Will Bankruyptcy Stop Wage Garnishment?
The quick answer to this is that 99% of the time, filing a bankruptcy case will stop a wage garnishment from carrying forward. Whether or not the garnishment will continue when the bankruptcy is over, depends on the chapter you filed and whether or not there was a discharge.
When a bankruptcy case is filed, a stay, or hold is put in place halting all creditor activity. If you are being garnighed, that means that the garnishment must stop immediately. If you file a chapter 7 chase, which most commonly discharges unsecured creditors, most likely you will complete the case with a discharge, and the debt for which you are being garnished will be wiped clean. If you file a chapter 13 bankruptcy case, most commonly the garnishment will halt so long as you are in the chapter 13 making payments to the bankruptcy trsutee, and most likely the debto for which you are being garnished will be discharged at the end of your chapter 13, unless it is paid in full in your plan.
Make sure that you are aware of timing issues if you have filed multiple bankruptcy cases in a certain period of time. In some instances, the automatic stay (or the bankruptcy protection) is limited to a certain period of time, or sometimes does not apply. This is only the case if there has been multiple bankruptcy cases pending within one year. In all cases, be sure to speak to a bankruptcy attorney who has experiences with this. Bankruptcy has its own set of rules and regulations, so it is important that any attorney you choose to represent you in bankruptcy have a sufficient amount of bankruptcy experience.
Other useful articles on this topic can be found here: