Wage garnishment in South Carolina

Consumer loan, card or lease debt

No wage garnishment, wherever the debt was madesource

Earnings in court collection

A judge cannot apply your earnings to a judgmentsource

Cash and bank exemption

$5,000 base, adjusted every even year, if you claim no homesteadsource

How long a judgment can be collected

10 years from the date it was enteredsource

Can my wages be garnished in South Carolina?

Not by an ordinary creditor. Two parts of state law work together:

• S.C. Code 37-5-104 says that for a debt from a consumer credit sale, a consumer lease, a consumer loan or a rent-to-own agreement, the creditor may not attach your unpaid earnings by garnishment or anything like it, regardless of where the deal was made.
• S.C. Code 15-39-410 lets a judge order a debtor’s property applied to a judgment, except the earnings for your personal services.

So a judgment for a credit card, a car loan, a personal loan or an unpaid medical bill does not give the creditor your paycheck. Your employer also may not fire you because a creditor tried to garnish your pay over a consumer credit judgment.

Garnishment papers from another state

Some collectors sue in the state where they are based and send the order to your employer. Section 15-39-420 blocks that for South Carolina residents. An employer here may not withhold any part of a resident’s wages because of a garnishment from a court outside the state, unless the creditor first wins a South Carolina judgment on the same debt. The same section adds that there shall be no garnishment of earnings for personal services, wherever the debt was incurred.

An employer that breaks this rule can be found guilty of a misdemeanor and fined up to $1,000. If your payroll office shows you an order from another state’s court, ask it to read this section before it takes anything.

What can still come out of a South Carolina paycheck

The state ban covers private creditors. Some deductions come from other law and can still appear on your stub:

• child support withholding,
• an IRS levy for federal taxes,
• a federal agency’s administrative garnishment for a non-tax debt, such as a defaulted federal student loan,
• certain bankruptcy court orders.

The U.S. Department of Labor fact sheet on wage garnishment lists these as types of garnishment with their own rules. South Carolina has no state minimum wage law, so any federal formula here runs on the $7.25 federal rate. Call and a garnishment specialist identifies which kind of order you have and what can stop it.

Can my bank account be garnished in South Carolina?

Money in the bank is easier for a creditor to reach than wages. If the sheriff returns an execution unpaid, the creditor can ask a circuit judge to order you to appear and answer questions about your property. The judge can also question your bank or anyone holding your property or owing you more than $10.

You can protect a lot under S.C. Code 15-41-30:

• cash and liquid assets, including bank deposits and unpaid earnings, with a base of $5,000, but only if you do not claim a homestead exemption,
• money traceable to Social Security, unemployment, public assistance, veterans’ benefits, disability, alimony or support.

The dollar amounts are adjusted every even year to follow prices and the new figures are published in the State Register. Exempt money a sheriff collects goes to the clerk of court and you petition the court of common pleas to get it back.