Wage garnishment in Alabama

Most a card or medical judgment can take

25% of take-home pay or the part above $217.50 a week if lesssource

Pay you always keep

$217.50 a week ($435 every two weeks)source

When to claim an exemption

Before the court’s order of condemnation; notice comes at least 5 days aheadsource

When your employer pays the court

Starting 30 days after the first amount is held back, then monthly or soonersource

Garnishment laws in Alabama: which limit wins

Two Alabama statutes and one federal law set ceilings. Your employer must use the smallest.

• Ala. Code 6-10-7 keeps 75% of your wages safe, so up to 25% can be held.
• Ala. Code 5-19-15 covers consumer credit debts. It allows the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above 30 times the federal minimum wage.

Disposable earnings means pay left after the deductions the law requires, like taxes. The state’s 25% rule counts your full wages, but the federal rule in DOL Fact Sheet 30 counts take-home pay, which protects more. So the federal figure usually controls.

On $250 of weekly take-home pay, the most is $32.50. On $600, it is $150. Paid every two weeks, the first $435 is safe.

What an Alabama process of garnishment does at your job

After a judgment, the creditor files a sworn statement of the amount owed with the court clerk. The clerk then issues a process of garnishment, which an officer serves on your employer. Your employer gets 30 days to answer under oath, as Ala. Code 6-6-393 says.

You must get written notice at least 5 days before the court rules against your employer. The writ shows the claim plus court costs. Your employer keeps holding back the allowed share of each check until that total is reached.

After 30 days of withholding, your employer starts paying the money into court, at least monthly. The creditor then asks the judge in writing for an order of condemnation, which releases the money to the creditor.

How to stop wage garnishment in Alabama

The main tool is a claim of exemption. It is a written statement, sworn under oath, filed in the court where the case is pending. If you got notice, it must be filed before the order of condemnation.

The Alabama State Bar wrote a fill-in form for this: the Motion to Stop Wage Garnishment (with Declaration and Claim of Exemption for Wages). You can get it from the Alabama Legal Help wage garnishment page.

That page explains what happens next:

• The creditor gets 15 days to challenge your claim.
• Withholding goes on until the judge rules, unless you ask the court in a motion to pause it.
• If you win, the pay already held should come back to you.

A release from the creditor or a bankruptcy filing can also end it. Call and a garnishment specialist goes over your writ and where your case stands.

The 2015 change that closed a wage loophole

Alabama protects a set amount of personal property from creditors. Some people used to fit their paychecks inside that protection.

Act 2015-484 shut that door. It added Ala. Code 6-10-6.1, which says wages are not personal property for this purpose. That covers the $7,500 exemption in Ala. Code 6-10-6 and the property exemption in Section 204 of the state constitution.

Now pay is protected only by the two percentage rules above. A wage claim today rests on things like the math being wrong, take-home pay under the floor or a debt that is not yours. Older help sheets may still describe the earlier approach.

Can a creditor freeze my bank account in Alabama?

Yes. A garnishment can reach money your bank holds for you. To protect it, file the same kind of sworn claim with a list of your property, money and debts owed to you, with the value and location of each.

The $7,500 personal property figure is adjusted for inflation by the State Treasurer every three years under Ala. Code 6-10-12.

Federal benefits get extra help. If Social Security, SSI or VA money is direct deposited, the bank must leave two months of it open to you, per the CFPB guide to protected benefits. Alabama Legal Help on debt collection also advises keeping other money out of a benefits account.