North Carolina wage garnishment

I have heard that wage garnishment in NC is illegal for personal debt?

I moved to NC in September and was sued by a former landlord in Missouri for past due rent after I moved here. I changed employers moving from Missouri to NC. My employer has branches located throughout NC and Missouri with the corporate headquarters in OHIO.
The landlord has issued a garnishment order. I have heard that the landlord is unable to collect via garnishment in NC unless they issue the garnishment to the employer I worked for in Missouri AND I still work for them. Is this correct?

Is there a reason you simply won't pay the rent?

Generally, that would be correct, in my opinion. Best bet is to contact NCDL for current policy; basic information can be found at http://www.nclabor.com/wh/fact%20she...rnishments.htm. Personally, I'd recommend you follow up with an attorney in the area for specifics in your particular situtation. The bottom of the page also provides additional resources, contact information and if you need it, legal referral information as well. Hope this helps.

Good luck.

There is no relationship between your employer and your landlord, is there? To assert that you are protected from garnishment because you simply changed jobs doesn't make too much sense to the casual observer---if that were the case, everyone who wanted to avoid garnishment could simply change jobs and * poof * Debt Be Gone.

That being said, I haven't personally had any experience with nor have I heard of a landlord garnishing wages---where I live, they simply file a summons and complaint at magistrates court (i.e. civil suit ). But if you say your landlord has already done this, it is probably due to the long distance factor since you moved so far away. I would also presume it is quite an appreciable amount of money to go to all that trouble and legal red tape to garnish your wages in another state.

Garnishing wages happens all the time----I don't understand how it makes sense to say ( in essence) you are free from repaying this debt (i.e. garnishment) because you simply changed jobs ! Where is the correlation between the two?

It's not the changing of jobs that is relevant, it's the changing of residence. With some exceptions that don't seem to apply in this case, North Carolina does not allow creditors to enforce judgments by garnishing wages.

That was my point. The fact that he changed JOBS is irrelevant. If changing jobs avoids garnishment, people would do it all the time.

The original posters point was since he changed JOBS, and the previous job's headquarters was in yada yada yada---- he felt he would be excluded from garnishment. My point is I don't see the relevance or relationship between his job and garnishment.

And, as you point out, it isn't the changing of the jobs---there is no relevance there.

Exactly.

I don't think the poster implied that he was exempt from wage garnishment simply because he had changed jobs. He wrote:

"I have heard that the landlord is unable to collect via garnishment in NC..." So he correctly pointed out that his NC residency makes a difference.

Then he wrote "...unless they issue the garnishment to the employer I worked for in Missouri AND I still work for them." So he thinks there may be an exception to the residency rule, but only if the debtor works for an out of state employer, which he doesn't.

I don't know how you could have intelligently interpreted the poster to be broadly stating that a debtor is free from garnishment if he switches a jobs.

"Switches a jobs?" Of course you didn't understand. I didn't expect that you would.

Your response is simply to point out a typo? As with the bankruptcy thread, your "advice" here is faulty.

There is a reason laymen may not practice law...

Who here is practicing law? You are practicing law online?


I find it humorous when posters accept and condone carelessness and imprecision in other areas while pointing out what they consider to be the same in other's responses regarding the law.

As a school teacher for years upon end before enrolling in law school (I have been very candid in this forum about my admittedly limited expertise as a now second year law student, and not an attorney), I find that having no regard for presentation detracts from the point you are trying to make. I have no doubt your reply is more accurate than is mine. But, to attempt to reflect on my intelligence and interpretation of the posters meaning while careless errors in your own reply go overlooked, is disingenuous at best.