Garnishment of tenants student loan check?

Question

Is it possible to garnish a tenants student loan check?

Bill Patterson · Answer

Jennifer.....Why don't you evict him first?  Then you will have a judgment against him and can do what you need to do to collect.

If you are renting to students, have their parents co-sign for the lease.  It's much easier getting them to pay than their free spirit son/daughter!  That has been in my student leases for 20 years!  Don't let them plead that they are 18 or 21...If they don't have a full time job, the parents co-sign even if they are 25 (or someone else has the collection problems)!
Bill

Account Closed · Answer

as long as you have a garnishment order you might could. i don't know the laws regarding student loans and garnishments.

with that being said you would have to determine the lender that is issuing the check to garnish, and that could be hard since even the student doesn't always know the end lender that is doing their loan, they get the award letter sign the promissory note and move on.

your best bet would be determining where he banks and getting an order on those accounts.

I am not an attorney so don't take my advise as legal advise.

Account Closed · Answer

ChaseT, the former tenant was not a full time student. He worked as a maintenance man at a company. He is like 40+ in age so there would not be any parent to cosign. He was getting a student loan for himself to attend one of those internet college programs at AIU online. He lost his day job so I did not have any wages to garnish. I knew he was getting the money for the student loan so that was his only source of income and I wanted to get it if I could.

Account Closed · Answer

Bill,

Sorry I was not clear on that point. I have already evicted him week before last. I do have judgment from the eviction. I am trying to execute on my judgment. As part of my execution I was trying to find out if I can garnish his student loan check since I did not know where he works currently and he does not have a bank account. Sorry for the confusion, my initial post must not have been clear enough. Thanks for the follow up.

Account Closed · Answer

Thanks everyone. Tenant does not bank with anyone as he typically visits the check cashing places and does money orders or cash. So I cannot garnish a bank account. He just started working full time somewhere but I don't know where. If I can find that out I will garnish wages. I do know he had a $1,300 student loan check at AIU and I wanted to know if I can go after that.

Chase T. · Answer

No... Federal loans must first be disbursed to schools, and then must be directly refunded into a bank account (no paper checks involved anymore). If they don't have a bank account, then either their parents are getting the refund, or their loan only covers tuition.
                    
                    Let this be a lesson for the future! Always verify your income sources from students. Also, get guarantors or co-signers if there are college students in the household. If you had a guarantor, you could have a garnishment order on that money, and something on their credit report too.

If you have private loans on their credit report, you should also stay very far away! It means they are too stupid to get federal PLUS (parent loans) or don't have a parent who is credit worthy enough to get a loan (even worse!).

Greg B. · Answer

I guess that would depend on the state and your reason?  In Texas I don't think it would fly at all.

Garnishment of tenants student loan check?

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