Colorado wage garnishment: 21 days to object, on Form 28

Colorado puts its whole garnishment procedure in one court rule, and gives the debtor a printed objection form that the employer is required to hand over.

Two numbers matter. The employer has 7 days to give you the paperwork. You have 21 days from the day the employer was served to object — and if nothing is filed, the money is released.

One rule, five writs

C.R.C.P. 103 opens by claiming the field:

This rule sets forth the exclusive process for garnishment. There shall be five (5) types of writs: (1) Writ of Continuing Garnishment, (2) Writ of Garnishment with Notice of Exemption and Pending Levy, (3) Writ of Garnishment for Support, (4) Writ of Garnishment—Judgment Debtor Other Than Natural Person, and (5) Writ of Garnishment in Aid of Writ of Attachment.

Wages are reached by the Writ of Continuing Garnishment, defined in Section 1(a)(1) as:

the exclusive procedure for withholding the earnings of a judgment debtor for successive pay periods for payment of a judgment debt other than a judgment for support

Support runs on a different writ and is not covered here.

The three forms

The rule works through numbered Appendix forms, and knowing which is which makes the paperwork legible:

Rule 103, Section 1(d) requires the creditor to serve the employer with two copies of the writ together with a blank Form 28 — "one copy of which the garnishee shall deliver to the judgment debtor."

So the objection form is built into the process. You should receive one without asking.

Your employer's seven days

Section 1(h)(1) puts a hard duty on the employer:

The garnishee shall deliver a copy of the writ of continuing garnishment, together with the calculation of the amount of exempt earnings that is based on the judgment debtor's last paycheck prior to delivery of the writ of continuing garnishment to the judgment debtor and the blank copy of C.R.C.P. Form 28 … to the judgment debtor not later than 7 days after the garnishee is served with the writ of continuing garnishment.

And it continues each pay period. Section 1(h)(2):

For all pay periods affected by the writ, the garnishee shall deliver a copy of the calculation of the amount of exempt earnings and the "Judgment Debtor's Objection to the Calculation of Amount of Exempt Earnings" to the judgment debtor at the time the judgment debtor receives earnings for that pay period.

If your employer has not given you the writ and the calculation, it is not following the rule — and that matters, because your objection deadline is running from a date you may not have been told.

The 21 days

This is the provision to act on:

If no objection to the calculation of exempt earnings or objection and request for exemption of earnings pursuant to section 13-54-104(2)(a)(I)(D), C.R.S., is filed by the judgment debtor within 21 days after the garnishee was served with the writ of continuing garnishment, the garnishee shall send the nonexempt earnings to the attorney, collection agency licensed pursuant to section 5-16-101, et seq., C.R.S., or court designated on the writ of continuing garnishment.

Read the trigger carefully: 21 days after the garnishee — your employer — was served, not 21 days after you received anything. Since the employer has 7 days to pass the papers on, you may effectively have a fortnight.

That is why the date and time of service matters, and the rule requires it to be recorded: under Section 1(d), "the person who serves the writ shall note the date and time of such service on the return service."

Filing the objection has an immediate effect on the money. Where "a written objection to the calculation of exempt earnings is filed with the clerk of the court and a copy is delivered to the garnishee", the nonexempt earnings go to the court rather than out to the creditor.

So the objection must go two places: filed with the clerk, and delivered to your employer.

How long the garnishment lasts

Section 1(g)(1) sets the lifespan, and it is long:

A writ of continuing garnishment shall be a lien and continuing levy against the nonexempt earnings of the judgment debtor until such time as earnings are no longer due, the underlying judgment is vacated, modified or satisfied in full, the writ is dismissed, or for 91 days (13 weeks) following service of the writ, if the judgment was entered prior to August 8, 2001, and 182 days (26 weeks) following service of the writ if the judgment was entered on or after August 8, 2001 …

For any modern judgment, that is 182 days — twenty-six weeks from service, not a single pay period.

Note the escape routes in the same sentence: the levy ends if the underlying judgment is vacated, modified or satisfied. That is the direct link to attacking the judgment itself — see setting aside a Colorado default judgment, where the Rule 60(b) window is 182 days for mistake and excusable neglect.

One writ at a time

Also in Section 1(d):

In any civil action, a judgment creditor shall serve no more than one writ of continuing garnishment upon any one garnishee for the same judgment debtor during the Effective Garnishment Period.

A creditor cannot stack writs on the same employer during the period — though a later writ may issue within it.

When your employer must pay over

Section 1(k)(3) sets the payment window:

the garnishee shall pay any nonexempt earnings and deliver a calculation of the amount of exempt earnings to the clerk of the court which issued such writ no less than 7 nor more than 14 days following the time the judgment debtor receives earnings affected by such writ.

Not immediately — between 7 and 14 days after each affected payday. That gap is the practical window in which a timely objection can stop a particular payment.

How much can be taken

The writ reaches earnings "except to the extent such earnings are exempt under law", and "earnings" takes its meaning from C.R.S. § 13-54.5-101(2). The exemption calculation itself is done on Form 27 by the employer, which is exactly what Form 28 lets you dispute — and Form 28 also covers a request for a reduction in withholding under C.R.S. § 13-54-104(2)(a)(I)(D).

Those statutes sit outside this site's Colorado corpus, which publishes the Rules of Civil Procedure; the current exemption percentages and thresholds should be checked against them.

How Colorado compares

A short checklist

1. Find the date the writ was served on your employer. The 21 days runs from that, and it is noted on the return of service.
2. Ask your employer for the papers if they have not arrived. They must be delivered within 7 days of service.
3. Use Form 28, and file it with the clerk of court and deliver a copy to your employer. Both steps are required for the money to be redirected to the court.
4. Check the Form 27 calculation against your actual pay — that is what Form 28 disputes.
5. Consider a reduction in withholding under § 13-54-104(2)(a)(I)(D); Form 28 covers that too.
6. Expect 182 days, not one paycheck.
7. Watch the 7-to-14-day payover window after each payday — that is the gap in which an objection can still catch a payment.
8. If the judgment itself is bad, move under C.R.C.P. 60 — vacating or modifying it ends the levy under Section 1(g)(1).
9. Check whether a second writ has been served on the same employer during the period; the rule permits only one.

Where these rules live

• C.R.C.P. 4 — Process
• C.R.C.P. 54 — Judgments; Costs
• C.R.C.P. 60 — Relief from Judgment or Order
• C.R.C.P. 103 — Garnishment
• C.R.C.P. 69 — Execution and Proceedings Subsequent to Judgment

This page explains what the rule says. It isn't legal advice, and the exemption statutes the rule depends on — C.R.S. §§ 13-54-104 and 13-54.5-101 — are outside this site's Colorado corpus and set the figures that decide how much of a paycheck is actually reachable.