Has anyone ever garnished someones wages? Court question
 

i evicted a tenant last year and went through small claims court to sue them and just recently tried garnishing wages and their employer didnt fill out the proper paperwork or pay me so they are now responsible for the money. court was easy before because they never showed up, but now that its their employer which is ihop im thinking they might get a lawyer to go.

i have a hearing for "entry of default judgement" with ihop and dont really know what its for exactly, has anyone done this and is there anything to do to prepare for it?

*cough* Slum lord. *cough*

I've dealt with garnishing wages before and if an employer doesn't follow the judgment and garnish the wages, they can be in big shit. What does YOUR attorney say?

I had no idea you were now working at iHop.

Good pancakes.

how much do they owe you that you went ahead to garnish wages? geezus.

Good luck bmk, here is a bump for ya.

I've never heard of anyone garnishing wages over 1-2 months worth of rent... even at $1k/month (though I doubt some ihop employee would be able to afford that), that's only $1-$2k... I would move on, and take it as a lesson learned... and just be more selective next time...

can't be that much, he said it was small claims court.

ya no shit let it go. Ihop has good lawyers and might put a counter suit on you for being a slum lord...

You would not spend a couple hours in court to get a couple months worth of rent plus damages (in your example, $2000)?

You took them to small claims court? Did they damage the property?

i spent a total of mabye 5-10 hours so far, she owed me $3,500 from damage and unpaid rent as well as late fees. small claims court was very easy, the limit was $3k on small claims court so i took the $500 loss to make it easy. i didnt hire a lawyer and did everything myself, because if im going to be doing this in the future since i have multiple properties i misewell learn how to do it.

as far as people saying let it go, if someone fucks me over, i will get what is owed to me.

be more careful who you rent to :2 cents: They work at ihop that should have been your first hint.

thats exactly whats happening here, they had 90 days to either pay me or disclose to me why they arent paying and they didnt do anything, so this is the next step.

You don't go to court to get $2k, you go to court to garnish the guy's wages...

I imagine normally what happens is this:
1. beemk spends half a day arranging all the details at court, spends additional $$ for filing fees, parking, gas to get to court, etc
2. beemk gets ruling in his favor to garnish the Bob's wages
3. ihop gets notified of it
4. Bob gets notified that his ihop wages are getting garnished
5. Bob thinks "fuck that"...
6. Bob quits ihop
7. Bob gets some under the table job at "Mike's Diner" for the next year or 2 until the smoke clears..

thanks for the info. you must have a lot of property management experience.

step 5 is ihop doesnt disclose anything after beemk sends them a wage garnishment via certified mail and beemk files for default judgement against ihop
step 6 beemk starts thread on gfy asking if anyone has experience in such thing

Typically it would again remain in small claims and thus again they (local ihop franchise owner) must represent or at least manager, no bigger lawyer as per small claims rules.

As a landlord you always go after it in court and get what is owed even at a small amount. Even if it just ends in a default with no money returned (ask accountant why), and then report to credit agencies.

Trying to pick better tenants, good fucking luck. I can tell this place is full of people who live in a dream world. I honestly have better results with selecting those who have no past evictions, and are living paycheck to paycheck. The few times I have picked some people who looked great on their credit report and had a nice job and income level, is the few times I ended up with more property damage than was allowed to be collected in small claims, back rent owed, and a stretched out eviction process.

You also must take the needed steps to renew every judgement when the time comes due. Keep that shit in their face for years. If you get lucky and find their bank info (part of our rental application and few change it), send the bank the garnishment too.

I got into a similar situation, and decided in the end to drop it. It just wasn't worth my time.

It just wasn't worth it.

A few years later. I got a phone call from a lady who was going to rent to an individual named "Jorge Rodriguez" who had three little girls. I thought about it, and decided to just forget about it, and told the lady that it couldn't be the same guy. Mentioned the name was too common and the tennant I had, didn't have children.

If you really want to go after this individual do it, it will teach them a lesson, but keep in mind that if you already evicted them, that eviction is public records and they maynot be able to rent from anyone else in the future.

Being a landlord is not easy! Just try not to go overboard on trying to collect, on a possible tax loss you already took.

I've had to to do court-mandated evictions on some tenants before and it's a pain in the ass. My suggestion is just forget about trying to garner wages for back-owed rent man. Just be thankful you've got rid of them, and next time be a little more cautious as to the employment history of your future tenants. That was a hard learned lesson for me.

Well, if this is still small claims (in CA, anyway), you can't have an atty.

You should get on one of those court shows. Win-win for both parties. Less work too.

i just looked it up, i guess you can. must be different in michigan.

That sucks. One of the nice things about going after a corp. They can't rep themselves and no attorneys allowed in small claims.

This may help you:
http://www.deb.uscourts.gov/Attorney...t_Judgment.htm

That is from United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware. Not applicable.

Like you have found out, picking a good tenant doesnt always mean credit report. Picking someone with no past evictions is a good tenant to pick. So I am kinda confused about your comment. Just pick people with no past evictions, or people with no past evictions in the last X years. (because people do change)

I may have not been clear.

Past evictions and unlawful detainers are a 100% rejection.
Bad credit is still acceptable.
Income level that is effectively near paycheck to paycheck is acceptable.
People with an income well beyond that of the type of rental you are renting fall into the questionable category.

As for people changing, that is rarely the case and few previous landlords will tell you the truth when you check for references. Past rent is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the property damage plus the up to six months of no rent while they are doing it that fucks your shit up.

Good formula you have there.

maybe ihop fired this person.

Judge Judy could clear this shit up in no time!

No shit.

Get over it.

She probably doesn't have any money anyways. If you garnish her wages and she lives paycheck to paycheck it can come back at you(in terms of paper work). Specially if she is having trouble financially. You won't be able to get shit.

We have done it before and had good results. They might not pay immediately but when that person who screwed you tries to get credit or buy a house they will have a collections issue on their credit report. This either has to be resolved or no go on credit (most times), hence we got a phone call from the individual asking to settle the amount owed.

Make sure you follow thru, not only are you doing it out of principle you are saving your fellow landlords a MASSIVE headache of renting to these deadbeats.

DH

Slum lord my ass.

Why would his bills or my bills be any less significant than someone else's? Is it because we happen to own property? Why would the property owners bills, possible mortgage, upkeep, taxes, or anything else matter less?

Fucking hate that mentality. How often do others let people borrow something worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing more than a few hundred to a few thousand dollar deposit with every possible law slanted against you, and you expect people to play nice or they are slum lords who's bills matter less?

anyone who thinks like that is most likely a broke loser who doesnt pay their rent on time.

No, no not at all. I agree with you there.

But I know beemk -- he's a slum lord. You should see the rat holes he rents to poor, hard working single moms. Then one day Massa Beemk drops by for the rent and 'Oh do you want to show me that leak you were complaining about ..... in the BEDROOM?" And if hardworking, single mother, Jane Doe doesn't play ball....bam out on her ass with her wages being garnished.

rat holes? your sister seemed to like living there until i tossed her out.

Case closed, the prosecution rests.

Pretty much called it bang on. :2 cents:

you wish