Salary Protection Question
A client asked an interesting question about Florida's salary exemption. Florida Statute 222.11 exempts from creditors an unlimited amount of salary earned by a debtor who is head of household. A Florida resident is head of household if he provides more than 50% of the support for a dependent. The question was whether in determining the 50% support requirement all of the money used to support the dependent must come from salary earned by the debtor. Otherwise stated, if a debtor uses a combination of salary and investment income to provide 50% of a dependent's support is the salary itself still protected from creditor garnishment.
The statute defines "head of family" as "any natural person who is providing more than one half of the support for a child or other dependant." The statute include no requirement on the source of support money. If the head of family support threshold is met with funds from any source, in my opinion the salary exemption should apply. I am not aware of any case in Florida which holds otherwise, although I have not researched the issue.
posted by Jonathan Alper, asset protection and estate planning attorney, Orlando, Florida
Florida's 222.11 has always made me wonder about folk who reside in Florida but work elsewhere - say, oilfield work in another state.
In other words, could a debtor who does remote field work move to Florida and still work in another state with protection, or could a creditor forum shop in the state the paychecks come from?
This is similar to another asset protection issue I haven't seen on this blog yet: assume a LP in Florida owns financial assets located in another state (e.g. T-bills) - can a creditor forum shop and try to collect in that state? And if so, could the LP manager simply move them home at the first sign of trouble?
I'm in process of divorce,and have debts that are on collection agency,is my salary is protected against any garnish from any collection agency?