Garnishment

What it means

Garnishment is a statutory deduction from an employee’s wage made on the order of a bailiff, a court or an administrative authority. The employer acts as the payer of the deduction and has no discretion in the matter.

Deductions are taken from net pay after contributions and the tax advance. A protected basic amount must remain with the employee; it increases for dependants and is derived from the subsistence minimum in force.

Garnishment must be told apart from voluntary deductions agreed with the employee, such as repayments of a loan from the employer. A voluntary deduction rests on the employee’s consent; garnishment rests on a third party’s order that the employee cannot cancel. Both come out of the same net pay, so where they coincide they have to be assessed together.

How it works in practice

Once the order is served, deductions start without any request from the employee and are remitted to the creditor within the set period. With several orders at once, the date of service governs the order of priority, and preferential claims follow a separate regime.

The whole course is recorded in the payroll record: service, amount, sums paid and the balance outstanding. On termination the information goes to the bailiff and to the new employer where known.

Deductions for maintenance, especially for a minor child, follow a special regime: a larger share of pay can be taken and they rank ahead of other claims. With every new order we therefore first check what kind of claim it is, and only then recalculate the amount and its place in the queue against deductions already running.

What to watch out for

Failing to deduct, or paying the money to the employee instead of the creditor, means the bailiff recovers the debt from the employer directly. Nor can it be agreed with the employee that no deduction will be made - such an agreement has no effect against the order.

The opposite extreme is also a mistake: deducting more than the law allows or leaving the employee less than the protected amount. The employee is then entitled to the difference. When the number of dependants changes, or pay includes wage compensation or a one-off bonus, the calculation must be redone that same month, not carried over from the previous one.