Those who have a lot of bad debts may want to try consolidating their debts before declaring personal bankruptcy. Consolidating bad debts with the help of a debt consolidation company will alleviate one from having to deal with debt collection agencies and create a plan whereby one can pay back a portion of what is owed. Under the terms of a consolidation agreement, one only has to pay back an average of fifteen to twenty five percent of what he or she originally owed. However, if debt consolidation is not a feasible option then a person should seriously consider filing bankruptcy.
While a person filing bankruptcy can do so without professional legal help, hiring a bankruptcy attorney is always a good idea. The attorney does not need to be the most expensive attorney in town, but he or she should be competent and experienced. If the reason for declaring bankruptcy stems from the fact that alimony has not been paid, then consulting a divorce lawyer may also be a good idea.
The first thing that a bankruptcy attorney will do is determine whether one should file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The lawyer will then file the proper papers and help a person to prepare for the court mediated meeting that will follow.
This meeting is mediated by a court appointed mediator; all creditors and their lawyers are also permitted to be in attendance. The court appointed mediator will ask one questions regarding his or her assets and will determine which ones can be kept and which ones must be sold to repay creditors.
If creditors do not object, then a person will be declared officially bankrupt and will be released from having to pay back past debts. On the other hand, one or more creditors can request that a person declaring bankruptcy still be required to pay off some or all bad debts. In such an instance, the case will go to court and a judge will determine if a person should be released from the debts under bankruptcy or not.
It should be noted that there are some debts that a person will still be required to pay, even if he or she has been declared bankrupt. A person will need to pay any back taxes or legal fines that he or she owes, even if bankruptcy has been declared. If a person buys multiple items on credit while bankruptcy proceedings are underway, then he or she may not be released from these debts. Student loans are very difficult to discharge under bankruptcy, although it can be done.
A person who cannot pay his or her debts should consider either debt consolidation or filing bankruptcy. If debt consolidation does not work, then one may find that declaring bankruptcy allows him or her to clear the slate and get on with his or her life. A person who wishes to declare bankruptcy should start by hiring a good bankruptcy attorney to help him or her file the proper paperwork and navigate the bankruptcy proceedings and all that they entail.
Filed under Credit Repair by on Mar 2nd, 2012. Comment.
Walking into the Chrysler dealership, I thought getting a loan was going to be a fairly simple process . However, the sales guy ran my credit report and gave me the bad news: basically, I had terrible credit with a score of 490 . I was unaware, but there were a bunch of charge offs on my credit report. Basically, I had a lot of debts that were actually joint debts from back when I was married . I had thought my ex husband was taking responsibility for those debts since he was the only one who used them . He wasn’t , so now I have a lower credit score because of it. Last time I checked, my score was great .
Obviously I had to do something quick to raise my credit score if I ever wanted to get financed on a car (or anything else for that matter ), but I didn’t know how to fix my score. The first thing I did was to order a personal copy of my credit report from annualcreditreport.com . I reviewed every single debt , taking special note of the older debts left by my husband. I reached out to them first, and offered a settlement, and to my surprise a majority of the creditors were willing to negotiate a lower amount . In fact, I settled for half of the debt or less in most cases. As part of the process, I asked each of the creditors for a letter that said “The debt has been paid in full.” Part of my agreement with all these creditors was that they would make no mention on my credit report that the debt had been settled for less than the full amount owed, since this looks bad to potential lenders in the future .
For the new debts, I used the same strategy, with one exception: I didn’t recognize some of the charges, and I felt they were not valid . I contested these debts using forms from the credit bureaus. The creditor had to either provide proof of debt validity or remove it from my report in a specified period of time . I got three debts removed this way when the creditor did not provide proof of the debt .
So, after a couple of months, my score started creeping back up , and within five months I had gotten my score back up to 670. I am now almost at 710 again, about nine months after that day I learned about my terrible credit situation.
Filed under credit by on Jan 17th, 2011. Comment.