Objecting to a Michigan garnishment: 14 days, form MC 49, and five grounds
Michigan procedure · Last verified August 17, 2026
Michigan runs garnishment on a court form and a fourteen-day clock. The form is MC 49, "Objections to Garnishment and Notice of Hearing", and the grounds it lists are the grounds the court expects you to argue.
The most useful of them is the one people never think of: if a judge has signed an installment payment order, the garnishment should not be running at all.
A note on sources
Michigan's garnishment procedure is MCR 3.101, and the objection provision is MCR 3.101(K). Chapter 3 of the Michigan Court Rules covers special proceedings and actions; this site's Michigan corpus publishes Chapter 2, Civil Procedure, so MCR 3.101 sits outside it. The underlying statutory framework is in MCL 600.4011 and following.
This page therefore describes the procedure and cites it precisely rather than reproducing the text. The official rule and the SCAO forms are published by the Michigan Courts at courts.michigan.gov.
Fourteen days
Objections must be filed within 14 days after the defendant is served with the writ of garnishment. The vehicle is form MC 49, which the State Court Administrative Office approves and which doubles as the notice of hearing — filing it sets the matter down.
Fourteen days from service on you, not from the day money disappears from your pay. Those are often different dates, and the second one is usually later.
The five grounds
Form MC 49 tracks the grounds recognized under MCR 3.101(K). In substance they are:
1. The funds are exempt. Money protected by law — benefits and other exempt categories — cannot be taken. Federal benefits such as Social Security carry their own protections independently of Michigan law.
2. There is an installment payment order. If a judge has signed an installment payment order — form MC 15a — you are already paying under a court-approved schedule, and that is a recognized objection to a garnishment running alongside it.
3. The maximum is already being withheld. If another order is already taking the legal maximum, a second garnishment cannot take more.
4. The judgment has been paid in full.
5. The garnishment was not properly issued or is invalid. This is the catch-all, and it covers real defects: the writ served on the garnishee after the service deadline, or the interest, costs, or judgment balance stated incorrectly.
| Ground | What to bring to the hearing |
|---|---|
| Funds are exempt | benefit award letters, bank statements tracing the deposits |
| Installment payment order | the signed MC 15a |
| Maximum already withheld | the other writ or income withholding order |
| Judgment paid | receipts, satisfaction, payoff correspondence |
| Improperly issued or invalid | the writ, the return of service, and your own arithmetic on the balance |
Ground 2 is the one to look for first. An installment order is a court's own alternative to garnishment, and a creditor garnishing over the top of one is running against the court's order.
How much can be taken
Michigan follows the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act ceiling for ordinary judgment debts: the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. Disposable earnings means gross pay less legally required deductions.
Support obligations run on a different and higher scale, and are not covered by this page.
Periodic writs and their life
A Michigan periodic garnishment attaches to earnings over time rather than to a single payment, and it continues until the writ expires, the judgment is satisfied, or the court orders otherwise. That is why the fourteen days matters: the objection is not about one paycheck.
If the problem is the judgment, not the garnishment
Objecting to the garnishment does not reopen the judgment. If you were never properly served, or the default should not have been entered, the remedy is a separate motion under MCR 2.612 in the case that produced the judgment — and MCR 2.612 is in Chapter 2, so its text is on this site.
Doing both at once is often right: the MC 49 objection protects exempt money on the fourteen-day clock, while the MCR 2.612 motion attacks the judgment behind it.
How Michigan compares
| Michigan | Ohio | Illinois | Wisconsin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debtor's deadline | 14 days from service of the writ | 5 business days | on or before the return date | none stated |
| Prescribed objection form | yes, MC 49 | statutory notice | clerk's forms | statutory forms |
| Installment order as a ground | yes, MC 15a | trustee under Ch. 2329 | no | no |
| Maximum taken | 25% of disposable (federal floor) | 25% | 15% of gross or the 45× excess | 20% of disposable |
| Objection goes to | the court, on the form | the clerk, in writing | the clerk | the employer |
A short checklist
- Diarise 14 days from the date you were served with the writ, not from the first deduction.
- Use form MC 49. It is the approved objection form and it doubles as the notice of hearing.
- Check first whether you have an installment payment order signed by a judge. If so, that is a recognized ground, and attach the MC 15a.
- Trace exempt deposits — benefit payments keep their character in a bank account, but you will need statements showing the source.
- Check whether another order is already taking the maximum.
- Check the arithmetic on the writ — interest, costs, and the balance claimed are all contestable under the improperly-issued ground.
- Check the service dates on the writ. A writ served on the garnishee after the deadline is invalid.
- File on time even if your evidence is incomplete. The hearing is where the proof is presented; the fourteen days is for filing.
- If the judgment itself is bad, file an MCR 2.612 motion separately.
Where these rules live
- MCR 2.612 — Relief from Judgment or Order
- MCR 2.621 — Proceedings Supplementary to Judgment
- MCR 2.622 — Receivers
- Official rule and forms: MCR 3.101 and form MC 49, published by the Michigan Courts.
This page explains how the procedure works. It isn't legal advice. MCR 3.101 is in Chapter 3 of the Michigan Court Rules and MCL 600.4011 is a statute, so neither is reproduced on this site; check the current form MC 49 and the rule itself before relying on the deadlines described here.