Unpaid Rent

• If a person fails to pay rent on time in Washington, DC, he should not worry about facing a garnishment order immediately. Rather, the person will first have to make his way through the district's housing court, if the landlord chooses to pursue payment. Only after the tenant has been evicted will the landlord potentially pursue payment of back rent through a separate lawsuit.
  
  

Civil Lawsuit

• If a landlord has evicted a tenant for unpaid rent, then he may choose to launch a civil suit afterward in which he seeks compensation for the time in which the tenant occupied the property without paying the rent that had been previously agreed upon. Filing a lawsuit and winning it must occur before a landlord can seek garnishment of wages. Extrajudicial garnishment is entirely illegal.
  
  

Garnishment

• In Washington, DC, a debtor can face garnishment for all types of debts, including civil judgments. If a person has a civil judgment levied against him, he will be given instructions by the judge as to when he must pay the debt by. It is only if the debtor fails to comply with the judge's instructions that he may see his wages garnished -- not immediately after receiving the judgment.
  
  

Considerations

• There are many federal laws that restrict how much of a person's wages can be garnished. In certain cases, a person who makes too little money cannot have his wages garnished at all. In addition, there are a number of different types of income, such as government payments, that are entirely exempt from seizure by private debt collectors, and thus could not be seized for unpaid rent.