If I have a tenant that keeps making excuses to not pay his rent on time, can I legally garnish their wages? This is in the state of VA, or do I do a pay or quit notice to start eviction proceedings?

You have to go to court, evict them, get a judgement and then you can go after the wages.

You can not garnish the wages.

You can see if the renter will allow a automatic withdraw from his pay check ( if the company will do that) then the rent would be taken out of each check. Not normal, in fact don't know anyone that does it, but if employer was willing I guess you could.

But if they don't pay rent, you evict.