Default Judgement and garnishments, what to do in Marietta, Atlanta Georgia

Judgments and Garnishing of Wages

HOW DID THEY GET A JUDGMENT AGAINST ME AND NOW THEY ARE GARNISHING MY WAGES?

In the State of Georgia, the following takes place in a wage or bank garnishment action. In order to file a wage or bank garnishment, the creditor must have obtained a judgment against you in Court prior to the garnishment action. To obtain a judgment the creditor files a lawsuit against you and waits to see if you file an answer. IT IS IMPORTANT TO DETERMINE IF YOU WERE EVER PERSONALLY SERVED WITH THE LAWSUIT. If the creditor serves you personally or serves an adult at your residence with the lawsuit, you have been served and the clock is ticking for you to file an answer to their lawsuit. You should be aware that collection law firms will attempt to serve you at a location where you may have previously lived with the address they have on file from the credit card application or billing address and then claim to the Judge they have served you by serving someone you don’t even know at your former address. If you have no knowledge of the judgment that has been obtained against you then your first step is to investigate the state court case file where the judgment was obtained against you to see how the creditor claims they served you and if they have a valid judgment. On the garnishment lawsuit, the creditor is supposed to list the name of the Court, the case number, and the amount of the judgment obtained against you. If the judgment was obtained out of state then you should contact the Clerk for the specific Court and obtain copies of the summons, complaint, entry of service, and Judgment.

In order to set aside the default judgment that was obtained against you, you will have to file a motion to set aside the judgment in the Court that rendered the default judgment against you. This could even be an out of State Court. I would strongly suggest that you retain legal counsel in the city where the default judgment was obtained to set aside the judgment. This is not easy to do on your own, especially if the default judgment is more than a year old and you at some point did owe the money. The strongest defenses are improper personal service, it was the wrong defendant, and the debt was outside of the statute of limitations. In Georgia the statute of limitations is six years from the last activity on the account meaning payment or charges you made on the account. Don’t be confused there are many materials out there that say 4 years, but the GA Court of Appeals decided it is 6 years a couple of years ago.

Another tactic by creditors is to put under their terms and conditions of the account agreement that you agree to allow any dispute of the debt to be decided by their hand picked arbitrator in a state that may be far away from where you live. Once they obtain an arbitration judgment against you in their arbitration company then they will domestic the award as a judgment against you in Georgia. In some cases you may not have even been personally served with notice of the arbitration proceedings. If you are notified of the arbitration action you must answer the complaint or again the arbitration company will just rule in favor of the creditor. If the judgment occurred from an arbitration award it is very difficult to set aside in your local state court. These sham arbitration proceedings have been slowed to almost a trickle by the State Attorney Generals, and the demise of some of the law firms funding the arbitration companies. It is much more common today for the collection law firm to file against you in the local county court.

At the same time you are filing a motion to set aside a default judgment, you must file an answer (traverse) in the state court case where the garnishment is taking place. For instructions on how to answer a garnishment see the page on wage and bank garnishments (Click here).