Texas Fair Debt Consumer Guide
Learn about your legal rights when facing Debt Collector Problems. Research the applicable laws that could help protect you when a debt collector is attempting to seize your assets, garnish your wages or continue collection of a debt that is outside Texas's Statutes Of Limitations. Texas phone recording laws could assist you in gathering proof of the debt collector's illegal tactics; find out whether recording your debt collector's phone conversation is permitted in your state.
The Texas Fair Debt Collection Consumer Practices Guide summarizes Texas's laws on wage garnishment, property and asset seizures and state statutes of limitations on debt collection and could provide the ammunition you need to stop or limit creditors and collectors from harassing you, garnishing your wages or bank accounts, and from seizing your property through liens, thus limiting your overall financial exposure.
This Guide does not include information concerning the FTC's Credit Practices Rule, state consumer protection laws or information regarding exemption provisions found in laws other than the state's general exemption laws and is not intended to substitute for the advice of an attorney.
Texas Consumer Debt Exemption Laws
If a debt collector threatens to seize your property or your assets, you could be protected under Texas’s Consumer Debt Exemption Laws. Read the summarized information below to learn how to protect what you own and what you cannot protect from seizure. You could significantly strengthen your bargaining position with debt collectors by knowing your rights under Texas Debt Exemption Law!
Texas Statutes
Texas has not opted out of federal bankruptcy exemptions at this time.
Wages: Texas Constitution article 16, § 28; Texas Code Annotated § 42.001.
Homestead: Texas Constitution article 16, §§ 50 and 51; Texas Code
Annotated §§ 41.001 and 41.002.
Tangible personal property: Texas Code Annotated §§ 42.001
through .005.
Benefits, retirement plans, insurance, judgments, and other intangibles:
Texas Code Annotated §§ 42.001, .0021, .0022.
Texas Debt Statutes of Limitation
Your debt may have expired under Texas’s Statutes of Limitations, and may be considered uncollectible. Read the summary below to see the length of time certain types of debt can continue to be collected under the Texas Debt Statutes of Limitations, don’t let a collector threaten to take you to court over an expired debt.
Texas Debt Statutes of Limitation
Contract or written instrument and for mortgage foreclosure: 5 years. F.S. 95.11.
The Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code provides a 4-year limitations period for types of debt. The SoL begins after the day the cause of action accrues, (Section 16.004 (a) (3)).
Texas Wage Garnishment Procedural Requirements
Wage garnishment doesn’t mean a debt collector or creditor is entitled to take all your money. Under Texas’s Wage Garnishment Laws, there are limits and protections on just how much can be taken from your paycheck.
Read the summary below to learn your garnishment rights under Texas law.
Texas Wage Garnishment Procedural Requirements
A writ of garnishment is available if a plaintiff has a valid, subsisting judgment and makes an affidavit that, within the plaintiff's knowledge, the defendant does not possess property in Texas subject to execution sufficient to satisfy the judgment. Tex. Civil. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. _ 63.001. After service of a writ of garnishment, the garnishee may not deliver any effects or pay any debt to the defendant. Tex. Civil. Prac. & Rem Code Ann._ 63.003.
The writ of garnishment shall be dated and tested as other writs, and may be delivered to the sheriff or constable by the officer who issued it, or he may deliver it to the plaintiff for that purpose. Tex. R. Civil. P. 662. The sheriff or constable receiving the writ of garnishment shall immediately proceed to execute the same by delivering a copy thereof to the garnishee, and shall make return thereof as of other citations. Tex. R. Civil. P. 663.
The defendant shall be served in any manner prescribed for service of a citation or as provided in Rule 21a with a copy of the writ of garnishment, the application, accompanying affidavits and orders of the court as soon as practicable following the service of the writ. There shall be prominently displayed on the face of the copy of the writ served on the defendant, in tenpoint type and in a manner calculated to advise a reasonably attentive person of its contents, the required notice. Tex. R. Civil. P. 663a.
Where the garnishee is discharged upon his answer, the costs of the proceeding, including a reasonable compensation to the garnishee, shall be taxed against the plaintiff. Where the answer of the garnishee has not been controverted and the garnishee is held thereon, such costs shall be taxed against the defendant and included in the execution. Where the answer is contested, the costs shall abide the issue of such contest. Tex. R. Civil. P. 677.
Interest Rate at which Judgments Accrue All judgments of the courts of this Statutee based on a contract that provides for a specific rate of interest earn interest at a rate equal to the lesser of the rate specified in the contract or 18 percent. All other judgments, together with taxable court costs, earn interest, compounded annually, at the rate published by the consumer credit commissioner in the Texas Register.
The consumer credit commissioner shall compute on the 15th day of each month the judgment interest rate by taking the auction rate quoted on a discount basis for 52 week treasury bills issued by the United Statutees government as published by the Federal Reserve Board on the most recent date preceding the date of computation. The interest rate so computed shall be the judgment rate, subject to a ten percent floor and a twenty percent ceiling. Judgments earn interest for the period beginning on the day the judgment is rendered and ending on the day the judgment is satisfied. Judgments in wrongful death, personal injury, and property damage cases must include prejudgment interest as calculated by Statute. Tex. Rev. Civil. Statute. Ann. art. 50691.05. Applicable Forms Tex. R. Civil. P. 661. Tex. R. Civil. P. 663a. 4.0.
Texas (Debt Collector) Call Recording Law
Under Texas State and Federal Call Recording Laws, you could record the actual phone conversation with a debt collector in your efforts to stop debt collectors from calling! Texas is a one party consent state, meaning only the permission of one person on the call is necessary to record. YOU ALONE can be considered the one party to give consent, thus you do not need a debt collectors permission to record the phone conversation in the state of Texas.
Research and find additional information about Federal Call Recording Laws and learn what call recording procedures are legal in other states.
