Hi, I am in Nebraska, and I have received a judgement against me to garnish my bank account. I currently have 5.00 in it, but my husbands wages will be direct deposited in 10 days. If they take the whole 1,000 and change we owe, we will lose our house. That is a little less than half of his income. We just got our house out of foreclosure and have to 811.00 house payments. Anyway, my question is this: can they take the whole amount at once? Even if it is wages? Is there anything I can do?

I guess this is what I get for burying my head in the sand. TIA for any help... :(

Yes they can take the whole thing. You need to reach a settlement with them fast.

Yes, of course remember you have had dozens of notices to pay, had months to work out paymnents with them, but did not. Now they have a garnishment, and will take any money that goes into the bank account, and actually a slightly larger amount may be froze until paymnents are made. You need to contact the work place and stop the direc deposit today.

Thanks for the quick answer. DO you think that they would work out payments? Or what do you mean by settlement?

FR_chuck, I know, I had worked out a payment plan, a check must have bounced. I had no warning to this, no call, nothing about the bank garnishment until I received it Friday. I knew I owed the money, I was trying to work it out.

Ps, I know it is my fault, I am not trying to pass that buck

You wouldn't get a warning of it. If you had an agreement and defaulted on it, its not surprising they made the move they did.

With your issues, you need to balance your check book better.

Depending upon the rules of procedure in your jurisdiction you may be able to bring a motion and argue that the limit on wage garnishments should extend to these monies even when deposited into your bank account.

The purpose of limiting how much of a person's wages can be garnished is to ensure that people have enough money to survive. If the creditor were able to take 100% of your wages from your bank this would enable the creditor to circumvent the limit on wage garnishments at their source. At first glance this would seem patently unfair.

In the meantime, if you can avoid having your wages directly deposited into your bank account you should do so. Often, opening up an account at another branch will at least buy you some temporary relief.

Depending upon the rules of procedure in your jurisdiction you may be able to bring a motion and argue that the limit on wage garnishments should extend to these monies even when deposited into your bank account.

The purpose of limiting how much of a person's wages can be garnished is to ensure that people have enough money to survive. If the creditor were able to take 100% of your wages from your bank this would enable the creditor to circumvent the limit on wage garnishments at their source. At first glance this would seem patently unfair.

In the meantime, if you can avoid having your wages directly deposited into your bank account you should do so. Often, opening up an account at another branch will at least buy you some temporary relief.


This ("I will not be able to live if 100% of my bank account is seized") argument is very, very difficult in NYS. By the time the hearing is scheduled and the argument made the money has already been seized. So, yes, I would stop the direct deposit immediately.

If you had an arrangement to pay and your check bounced you have broken your contract with the creditor and they will probably have little interest in negotiating any further with you.