How do I obtain garnished wages from trustee in chapter 7 filing? 21 Answers as of August 26, 2011

Unfortunately you cannot recover the garnished wages as they are property of the Chapter 7 trustee.

Your attorney should get that back for you.

File motion

Sounds like you're filing without counsel. If you're in VA you need to file a homestead deed within 5 days of the 341 to get them back or the trustee will keep them. You can call the Trustee's office and ask about getting it back. There's a specific form, and that may be on the bankruptcy court's site. It may also be on the county land records site.

If you filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy then one of theprotections is the automatic stay provision, which generally prevents creditors from collecting debts from you. Under the automatic stay, creditors are not allowed to call you or send you collection letters. They also cant take or continue any legal action against you. If a garnishment order has been issued then the automatic stay stops garnishment of your wages.

How did the court clerk get them? Who is garnishing your wages? Typically it is the Sheriff's office that sends out the levy notice to your employer. This doesn't have anything to do with the Trustee in your case, or the court clerk. If the wages were garnished AFTER your bankruptcy case was filed, then they should be returned to your employer who would then turn them over to you. If this was pre-bankruptcy garnishment, that's a little trickier. You need to have listed the garnished amount as an asset, exempted it in Schedule "C", and then you have to bring a Motion to Avoid the Lien under 11 USC 522(f).

Garnished wages are usually in the possession of the Sheriff and are not sent to the creditor if you file a bankruptcy case. The trustee tells the Sheriff what to do with the money. Most of the time, if you have exempted the money in the bankruptcy petition or is a small amount, the trustee will instruct the Sheriff to send you the money. Your lawyer can ask the trustee for a letter instructing the Sheriff to release the funds to you if you were able to exempt the funds.

you may be entitled to the funds if you have an available exemption for the funds AND it was claimed on your Schedule C. You should contact an attorney to assist you with this issue. m

You will likely have to prove they are not property of the bankruptcy estate. This will depend on when the garnishment took place.

To obtain garnished wages from the trustee holding them you need to claim them exempt in schedule C.