• Georgia garnishment law provides provisions for claim disputes, statute of limitations, interest rates and use of bad checks.The gold topped state capitol building in Montpelier, Vermont image by Rob Hill from Fotolia.com
  
  Creditors use garnishment to collect unpaid debt with a court-order. States, like Georgia, have state garnishment laws, although the federal law takes the place of it when the federal law allows for a larger income exemption. Federal law prohibited collectors from garnishing 75 percent of an individual’s disposable weekly income or as much as 30 times the federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25 as of 2010. Georgia observes the federal law for income exemption.
  
  

Garnishment Dispute

• A creditor must issue a garnishment summons to the debtor notifying him of the debt owed. He is permitted to dispute the legitimacy of the garnishment and the amount. He has 45 days from the date of the written notification in the form of a garnishment affidavit to challenge it. If he doesn’t supply an answer within this time frame, the creditor may seek a judgment against him for the full amount of the debt. When the garnishment is pursued by an employer to an employee, Georgia law states the employer isn’t legally able to discharge an employee, because a creditor is garnishing his wages.
  
  

Garnishment Statute of Limitations

• Georgia law imposes a statute of limitations for how far a creditor can go back to collect debt owed. For credit cards the statute of limitations is four years for open accounts. It's six years for written contracts. The statute of limitations is five years for foreign judgments (lawsuits with foreign entities) and seven years for domestic judgments (lawsuits with entities operating in the U.S.).
  
  

Maximum Interest Rate

• Georgia sets a maximum interest rate for creditors to impose as a fee for overdue debt. The rate stands at 7 percent for legal debt incurred, 12 percent for debt from a past due judgment and 18 percent on commercial accounts. The percentage is applied to the total amount of debt.
  
  

Bad Check Damages

• Georgia permits creditors to charge double the damages as much as $500, in addition to a service charge of $20 or 5 percent, whichever is greater, for borrowers who provide a bad check to pay off a portion or all of their unpaid debt.