Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia

Can a hOS able garnish your wages while you are making your payments?


Asked on 1/07/15, 12:46 am

2 Answers from Attorneys

Glen Ashman Ashman Law Office also dba Glen Ashman Attorney

What's a hOS able?

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Answered on 1/07/15, 4:23 am

I assume you mean HOSpital.

If so, then your question is can the hospital garnish wages while you are making payments.

First, no creditor (absent the federal government for a federal student loan) can just garnish your wages absent some type of court proceeding. If you owe money to a creditor, that creditor must first sue you and get a judgment if they wish to be able to enforce the judgment via wage garnishment.

The real question which you do not ask implicates a common myth. Most people that owe a medical debt think that they cannot be sued as long as they are sending in their payments or whatever they think they can afford ($10 or $25 or whatever). This is a MYTH! Hospitals and healthcare providers are in the business of providing for healthcare; they are not money lenders. If you need to make payments then get a loan, pay the hospital and then repay the loan. Hospitals can and do routinely turn people over to collections even where patients are paying money. And hospitals can sue you as well. So if you owe money to a hospital, the answer in short is yes, the hospital can sue you and get a money judgment and can garnish your wages even if you are making payments.

If you mean HOA (as in home owner's association) this does not really make sense because the HOA will file a lien for unpaid HOA assessments/dues and if you still do not pay they will foreclose on your property.

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Answered on 1/10/15, 6:12 am


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