How to Fill Out and File a Tennessee Garnishment Hardship Form

The Tennessee garnishment hardship form is one of two court filings you submit to the clerk of the court that entered the judgment against you: a Request to Protect Income and Assets (also called a Motion to Quash Garnishment) if the wrong amount or exempt money is being taken, or a Slow Pay Motion if you simply cannot afford what the law allows the creditor to withhold. Both require a sworn statement about your income and expenses, both carry a $25 filing fee that can be waived for indigency, and one of them has a 20-day deadline that starts the first time your employer withholds a paycheck.¹

Which Form You Need

Pick the form by asking what is actually wrong with the garnishment.

If your employer is withholding more than the law allows, if protected income like Social Security is being taken, or if you have dependent children the exemption calculation ignored, you want the Request to Protect Income and Assets, which Tennessee courts also label a Motion to Quash Garnishment and Claim Exemption Rights.² This filing challenges the garnishment itself.

If the amount is technically legal but you cannot live on what’s left, you want the Slow Pay Motion under T.C.A. § 26-2-216. Instead of fighting the math, you ask the judge to stop the garnishment and let you pay the court clerk directly on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly schedule you can afford. Filing the motion automatically stays the garnishment while the court decides, and the stay covers any other funds the creditor is trying to reach for the same judgment, not just wages.³

You get one Slow Pay Motion per judgment. If the court denies it, or revokes it because you fell behind, reinstatement is discretionary and covers only future pay periods.³ Treat the filing as your one shot.

Where to Get the Form

The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts publishes standardized General Sessions civil forms at tncourts.gov under Court Forms.² Paper copies are available at the clerk’s office in the county where the judgment was entered.

Form names vary by county. Davidson County publishes a “Request to Protect Income and Assets.”⁴ Montgomery County publishes a “Motion to Quash Garnishment / Execution and Claim Exemption Rights.”⁵ Both do the same job. Use whichever version your county clerk hands you.

What to Gather Before You Fill It Out

Both filings make you back up your claims with proof. The Slow Pay affidavit specifically requires your employer’s name and address, your wage or salary amount, your payday, and a sworn statement that you cannot pay the debt from any funds other than your earnings.³ Pull these documents together before you sit down with the form:

Two to four weeks of recent pay stubs showing gross pay, deductions, and net pay.
Your employer’s full name, street address, and pay schedule.
Birth certificates or similar proof for every child under 16 who lives in Tennessee and depends on you.
Monthly expense records: rent or mortgage, utilities, medical bills, groceries, insurance. The Davidson County form tells filers to bring “witnesses, photos, papers, receipts” to show why the money should be protected.⁴
Bank statements, especially any that show direct deposits of exempt income like Social Security.

Filling Out the Form

Work top to bottom and fill in every field. Blank spaces slow the clerk down and give the creditor an easy objection.

You will be asked to identify the case number and the parties exactly as they appear on the underlying judgment. Copy them from the garnishment paperwork your employer received or from your own records.

Next, state what you are claiming. The form lets you check a wage exemption, an exempt property claim, or both. Pick everything that applies. If exempt income like Social Security is in a garnished bank account, say so and attach the deposit records that trace it.

Enter your employer’s name and address. This is how the court tells your employer to stop withholding if the motion is granted.

For a Slow Pay Motion, complete the accompanying affidavit. Fill in your wage amount, payday, and the sworn statement that you have no other funds to pay the judgment. Propose a realistic installment amount. Something you cannot actually sustain is worse than nothing, because missing payments ends the stay.

Sign in front of the clerk or a notary, depending on what your county requires. Everything on the form is sworn testimony.

If You Cannot Afford the Filing Fee

The standard post-judgment filing fee in Tennessee is $25.00, applied uniformly across General Sessions, circuit, and chancery courts.⁶ If you cannot pay it, file a Uniform Civil Affidavit of Indigency along with your motion. Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 29 governs the form, which requires a sworn statement about your assets, income, and expenses.⁷ The standardized version is on the state courts website.⁸ Inaccuracies on this affidavit can be treated as perjury, so be precise.

Where and When to File

Take the completed forms to the Clerk of the Court in the county that entered the original judgment. Not the county you live in, not the county where you work, unless those happen to be the same place.

For a Motion to Quash, you have 20 days from the first withholding of your wages to file. The clock starts the day your employer actually takes money from your check, not the day you noticed the garnishment or received notice of it. File within that window and the funds already collected cannot be released to the creditor until the court rules on your motion.¹

The Slow Pay Motion has no equivalent 20-day deadline, but waiting is still bad: garnishment keeps running until you file, and the automatic stay applies only going forward.³

After You File

You are responsible for making sure the creditor or their attorney receives a copy of your motion. The clerk can usually handle service for an extra fee, or you can send it by certified mail yourself.

The clerk will set a hearing date and notify the creditor. West Tennessee Legal Services describes the process plainly: the clerk tells you when to come back to court and sends the court date to the creditor.⁹

Bring everything you gathered. The judge compares your income to your expenses and decides whether to modify or quash the garnishment, or, on a Slow Pay Motion, what installment you can realistically afford. If the Motion to Quash is granted, the garnishment is reduced or eliminated and improperly withheld funds should be returned. If the Slow Pay Motion is granted, your employer is told to stop withholding and you pay the clerk on the schedule the judge sets.⁹ If the motion is denied, garnishment continues on the original terms.

Keeping a Slow Pay Order Alive

The Slow Pay order lives and dies by the payments. Miss one and the creditor can ask the court to revoke the stay and restart garnishment. The court can reinstate the stay “for good cause shown,” but reinstatement is discretionary and covers only pay periods after reinstatement. Anything garnished between your default and the reinstatement is gone.³

If something is about to go wrong, a medical bill, a car repair, call the clerk’s office or the creditor’s attorney before the payment is due. Judges respond better to someone who communicates ahead of a problem than to someone who stops paying and asks forgiveness later.

Income the Form Can Protect Outright

Some income cannot be garnished by ordinary judgment creditors at all. If any of these are being taken, a Motion to Quash is the right form because the garnishment is unlawful on its face:

Social Security benefits are protected from ordinary creditors, though the federal government can still reach them for child support, alimony, restitution, federal tax debts (up to 15 percent), and certain other federal debts.¹⁰
Supplemental Security Income is protected even from most government garnishment.
Veterans Affairs benefits generally cannot be garnished by creditors, with narrow exceptions for certain service-connected disability payments waived in lieu of military retirement pay.¹¹
ERISA-qualified pension and retirement plan funds are protected while they remain in the plan.¹²
Tennessee adds a $2.50 per week exemption for each dependent child under 16 living in the state, but only if you have notified your employer about each qualifying dependent. Without that notice the exemption does not apply.¹³

If a garnished bank account mixes exempt and non-exempt money, bring deposit records that trace which dollars came from where. A judge cannot protect money you cannot prove is exempt.

1
Tennessee State Courts. Tennessee Execution Garnishment
2
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Court-Approved General Sessions Civil Court Forms
3
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 26-2-216 – Installment Payments to Obtain Stay of Garnishment
4
Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk. Request to Protect Income and Assets
5
Montgomery County Tennessee. Motion to Quash Garnishment / Execution and Claim Exemption Rights
6
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 8-21-401 – Schedule of Fees
7
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Rule 29 – Uniform Civil Affidavit of Indigency
8
Tennessee State Courts. Uniform Civil Affidavit of Indigency
9
West Tennessee Legal Services. Keep Your Paycheck From Being Garnished
10
Social Security Administration. Can My Social Security Benefits Be Garnished or Levied?
11
Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Garnishment of Accounts Containing Federal Benefit Payments FAQ
12
U.S. Department of Justice. John H. Mackey, et al., Petitioners v. Lanier Collection Agency and Service, Inc.
13
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 26-2-107 – Exemptions for Dependent Children