Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Utah

My rights about paying back past due credit

Due to illness and inability to maintain working, our business failed. We had no desire to file bankruptcy. We have been paying several old bills for over a year and making good headway. Suddenly, one of the creditors we have been paying put a garnishment on our check for 4 times the amount we were paying them. Now we are in a position of not being able to keep up the other payments because this one creditor is taking all the money we have been paying out. Is there any way besides filing a chapter 13 to stop this? We are afraid that the other creditors we have been paying will do the same after this one garnishment has been paid in full. It gives us no chance to pay more than one bill at a time and the others we owe have to keep waiting.


Asked on 1/12/06, 8:35 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Alvin Lundgren Alvin R. Lundgren, L.C.

Re: My rights about paying back past due credit

I assume that the garnishment is for a debt which you personally guaranteed, or the business was not a corporation or LLC. Your only option is to negotiate a deal with the garnisher. Before the garnishment there would have had to have been a judgment. If there are other judgments out there, you will continue to be at risk. For all who have judgments, unless there is a written agreement approved by a judge, you are at their mercy. Your credit will not be much worse than it is now if you file bankruptcy. You can file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which forces all creditors to adhere to a payment plan which you can afford. In Chapter 13 you pay your creditors but under the supervision of the court so that no single creditor can take advantage of you nor gain priority over other creditors. Consider it.

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Answered on 1/13/06, 9:03 am


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