Helping You Overcome Life’s Most Difficult Legal Challenges

Pursuing wage garnishment when collecting on a debt

On Behalf of | May 23, 2022 | Bankruptcy |

Debt collection is a difficult process made even more complex by state and federal laws that limit what collectors can do. When someone owes your Wisconsin-based company money, you may need to exert significant effort to get them to make payments.

Although they may have committed to making monthly payments, they could fall behind, leaving your company with an ever-growing balance owed as you assess both interest and fees. Eventually, you may feel like your only option is to take the borrower or debtor to court.

The Wisconsin civil courts may grant you a garnishment of someone’s wages. How will that help your company reduce the balance that someone owes?

Garnishments prevent people from skipping payments

When a judge reviews the circumstances and grants your company the garnishment of someone’s wages, payment toward what they owe you will come directly out of their income before the money hits their account or their employer prints a check. You can receive up to 20% of someone’s disposable income.

Wisconsin sets someone’s disposable income at 30 times the hourly minimum wage. Any money earned beyond that is subject to garnishment, and with each payment, the balance on the account will drop a little.

Although it may take months for someone to fully repay your company by making small minimum payments through a garnishment, those smaller payments are still better than no payments whatsoever. The higher someone’s income is, the faster the garnishment will help you recoup what they owe your business. Learning more about the various business collections options available can help your company recover the money that others owe.