A new garnishment law is now on the books.
Gov. Nathan Deal signed the amended garnishment bill into law Tuesday, seven months after a federal judge said the state law was unconstitutional.
The judge’s ruling stopped garnishments in Gwinnett County, where the case was filed. Some other counties stopped processing garnishments, at least temporarily, while questions about what was permitted persisted.
The new law is intended to fix a number of issues. The previous law didn’t require creditors to tell debtors that some money — such as Social Security benefits, welfare payments and workers’ compensation — is off-limits to garnishments.
When that money is wrongly taken, the law didn’t require creditors to tell people how to get it back, and it didn’t provide a timely procedure for determining whether funds should have been exempt, U.S. District Senior Judge Marvin H. Shoob wrote in the order in September.
The new law clarifies what money in accounts is exempt and explains how quickly it can be recovered if it is taken improperly. It describes what a debtor should do if exempt money has been taken and explains the redress debtors would have. The law includes forms that have to be sent with a notice of garnishment.
No one from the Gwinnett County clerk’s office responded immediately to a phone call or an email seeking comment about when garnishments that would take individuals’ assets held in financial institutions, such as banks, would resume. In 2014, Gwinnett processed 31 percent of all garnishments in the state, more than any other county.
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