Bankruptcy Blog

Countless times my clients will tell me that they never want to use a credit card again. My comment in return is always this: credit cards are a necessary evil; you can get overwhelmed with them but you cannot live in our society without them.

The Bankruptcy Code permits the Debtor to sell property of the estate after a noticed hearing. 11 U.S.C. §§ 363 and 1303. Section 363 provides that a trustee can sell property in the bankruptcy with court permission. Section 1303 extends this right to the Debtor in a Chapter 13 case.

Deciding whether you qualify to file a certain chapter of bankruptcy, whether you qualify for a discharge, and whether you should file a particular chapter are three distinct questions.

Filing for bankruptcy is a great legal tool used to assist people who have fallen on tough financial times. There are many intricacies involved in bankruptcy that you should discuss with a knowledgeable attorney, none more important than exemptions. Exemptions determine what property (i.e. home, car, retirement accounts, cash-on-hand, etc.) you may keep in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and are one of the mechanisms used to determine how much you must pay to certain creditors in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. When you “exempt” a particular piece of property, you are essentially protecting it from being liquidated by your bankruptcy trustee to pay back your creditors. The attorneys at Bankruptcy Law Group can help you maximize the amount of real and personal property you are allowed to retain when filing for bankruptcy.

As soon as you default on your loan with a creditor who has a security interest (a.k.a. lien) on your vehicle, the creditor can take the vehicle away from you. In most cases this could mean missing just one payment. However, auto repossession is more likely to happen when you get several payments behind. It's also worth nothing that a creditor does not have to warn you that they are looking for your vehicle. So if you get behind on your auto payments, be ready to walk outside and find that your vehicle has vanished.

Finding out money is going to be taken out of your paycheck to pay a past-due debt is extremely stressful, especially when you are already just scraping by.

I have appeared on many radio shows and have met with thousands of clients over the past few years, and one of the most gut-wrenching things I have heard is someone dipping into their retirement in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. But guess what? It didn’t help. They still had to file for bankruptcy and cost themselves much-needed retirement funds.

On far too many occasions, I have seen a debtor get “caught” not fully disclosing everything. They felt that they were honest, but they did not take that extra step of disclosure, because they felt it really didn’t matter. The problem is simple: when it comes to bankruptcy, it all matters. Otherwise, the question would not be asked.

If you gain a debt, you should work to pay it off. Seems like a rather simple process, doesn’t it? Well, according to the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), the nation’s economic downturn and outdated state-level exemption laws are preventing growing numbers of hardworking debtors from holding up their end of the bargain.

Often clients put off filing bankruptcy, because they are concerned about the effect it will have on their credit. Even when they have fallen behind on their bills (causing 30-60 day late notices on their credit report) or even when some creditors have sold their account to collection agencies (further negatively impacting their credit score), they still look at bankruptcy as this nuclear bomb that will demolish their credit forever. Fortunately, that is not the case. In fact, in many situations the filing of the bankruptcy results in an immediate improvement in credit. After your bankruptcy, your discharged debt is gone, and you have a clean slate to start rebuilding your credit.