Get Out Of Debt

Bankruptcy FAQ

How much will Bellevue bankruptcy cost me?
Bankruptcy cases generally cost about $1000 and $2000 for a Chapter 7. While this is a good estimate, prices will differ depending on your situation and the type of bankruptcy that you file. A Chapter 13 is much more expensive because it take much more time and work.

Will I lose everything?
No you will not. Depending on the type of bankruptcy you file under, you may not lose anything at all. If you file Chapter 13 the bankruptcy court does not require you to give up any assets. In a Chapter 7 the bankruptcy court will require you to give up any non-exempt assets, but with the help of a bankruptcy attorney most people who file bankruptcy must not give up any assets.

Will my creditors leave me alone?
They certainly will. Once you submit your bankruptcy petition, your creditors will no longer be allowed to try to get money from you. This happens because the bankruptcy court will send an automatic stay to all your creditor on your behalf. This automatic stay legally prohibits them from trying to contact you at all.

How will bankruptcy affect my credit score?
A bankruptcy can remain on your credit report for 10 years after you file bankruptcy. Most people are not approved for a mortgage loan for 2 – 3 years after they file bankruptcy. However, most people find that after 3 years the major effects of bankruptcy have greatly decreased.

What happens during bankruptcy?
Before filing bankruptcy, all debtors are required to complete a credit counseling course. This course can be completed in person, over the phone or online. Your attorney will help you sign up for it.

Your bankruptcy attorney will then help you get the necessary paperwork together so that your request is filed correctly with the bankruptcy court. Once you have filed, an automatic stay is put into place. This prohibits your creditors from contacting you anymore.

You will then prepare a list of all your assets and debts. Your assets will be divided into two groups, exempt and non-exempt. You will keep all your exempt assets and your attorney will protect your possessions by making them exempt. You will bring this list to a meeting with your creditors and a trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court. The trustee will take your non-exempt assets and sell them. The money raised will be payed to your creditors. The rest of your debt will be discharged.

All you have left to do is take a personal financial management course that can also be completed in person, by phone or online. After that you are living your new debt-free life!

If you ever find yourself in need of bankruptcy services, you need to know what services are available and what they have to offer you. You may find that credit counseling and a lawyer will help your situation. In all, bankruptcy services offer you the ability to talk and think about alternatives before using a lawyer to file for bankruptcy.

Credit Counseling Services

If you find yourself in debt and have the phone keeps ringing, look for a credit counseling service to determine if there is an alternative that may work better for you than filing for bankruptcy. They will guide you through your finances and see if there might be a way to pay back the debt without putting you in poverty.

Two types of credit counseling services exist, the pay for and the non-profit. The services are the same, but you want to choose the one right for your debt problem. Because you are already in debt, you might consider a non-profit credit counseling service. Before you file for bankruptcy, you need to have a discussion with a credit counselor to determine the amount of debt and other solutions before taking the next big step.

Proceeding with Bankruptcy

When you decide with a counselor to proceed to bankruptcy, you will need the bankruptcy services of a qualified lawyer. Many bankruptcy lawyers have a full team of counselors, and paralegals to file the necessary paperwork thus reducing the cost of your lawyer fees. You cannot include your lawyer fees in a bankruptcy, the money is needed up front.

Pre-filling services are just as important as the credit counseling you have gone through by now. You have to decide how to stop any foreclosures, find a money-managing program along with debt reduction and credit repair. The bankruptcy services will help with all these needs. If by chance a business is affected, you will need help determining to liquidate the assets or do some type of restructuring of the business.

Chapter 7 or Chapter 13

What should you file under? Bankruptcy services will help you determine what chapter to file under, either chapter 7 or chapter 13. In some cases, but rare, people may file under chapter 12 only if you have fishing or farming business run by a family as a family business.

In order to file for chapter 7, you need to meet the guidelines. The bankruptcy services will help determine which one you qualify for before filing. There are advantages and disadvantages to filing for chapter 7 verses a chapter 13. You need to have all the paperwork filled out correctly before submitting to the courts. This includes all documentation and filing fees associated with the bankruptcy proceedings.

What the Service Should Do

o The service will help you work out an affordable repayment plan.

o They help you work out an after bankruptcy plan to afford for comfortable living with the repayment plan in mind.

o They help you determine what assets you can retain and what will have to be given up.

With all the help and counseling you receive from bankruptcy services, you can rest assured things will get better. Whether you file or work out a payment plan, you will find their services very useful. They are there for you and will help to work out the best plan of action for your budget and lifestyle.

If you need the bankruptcy services, look for one that will offer a complete service instead of jumping around from counselor to lawyer to processors. This helps make things easier on you and all the information stays in one place.

Bankruptcy does not mean the end of good credit when the service works with you to clean your credit up and puts you back on the right track. Take all your bills and debts along to a counselor to ensure that no unexpected things pop up after setting up your repayment plan and living expenses.

Bankruptcy is seen differently by different people, especially depending on their situation. Some may see it as a quick fix to a long building problem while others may not see it as an option at all due to the costs of the attorney. Everyone should understand exactly what bankruptcy is, and if it is a good idea for them in their situation.

In reality, bankruptcy should only be seen as a very last resort, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’ve really hit rock bottom financially. Take, for instance, someone that has $100,000 in debt that they cannot hope to pay off any time soon. However, once they bring their case to court to file for bankruptcy, the fact that they own a second home comes to light. They really didn’t consider it because it’s an older home that’s not in great shape that they are letting relatives live in for free. Suddenly their asset to debt ratio looks completely different than what they had assumed, and the bankruptcy is either declined or pushed through on terms that are not at all good for the one claiming.

This is but one example of the many situations where a qualified attorney would’ve actually saved you quite a bit of money simply by looking at things from an angle that you had not considered because you do not deal with bankruptcies all day every day. There are also many situations where, no matter how hard he looked, the layman could not possibly see coming because they arise due to laws and regulations that most simply do not know, nor have the training to understand them even if they were able to look them up. Bankruptcy law was complicated to begin with, but with the legislation passed within recent years, there are now multiple levels of confusing changes that must be navigated. You probably do not stand where you think you do when it comes to your financial situation as seen by the law.

Another issue people face is the type of bankruptcy they plan to file: Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. Put simply, in a Chapter 7, you discharge everything because you do not have the means to pay any or all of it within a certain time frame, and in a Chapter 13, only some of the debt may be discharged, if any, and what is left is generally reduced to an amount that the person filing is able to pay. And even at that, there are certain types of debt that cannot be eliminated through any type of bankruptcy, so if your debt is comprised in large part by these types of debt, a filing is not going to help you at all.

You can file whichever you like, but it is not the one filing who decides which type of bankruptcy is passed. The court determines how much the filer is able to repay, and whether the case constitutes as a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, regardless of which is initially filed. A qualified bankruptcy attorney knows how to present the case in a light that is much more likely to get the type of bankruptcy passed that you need.

There are many questions raised when a company files for corporate bankruptcy. As an investor, people would like to what happens to the company, who would look into the interests of investors, and above all, if the old securities have any value left, or is the stock is turned into paste paper until the company is reorganized.

Companies that go out of business or try to recover from crippling debt are governed by federal bankruptcy laws. A bankrupt company, the “debtor,” can use either Chapter 11 or chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Under Chapter 11, the company is allowed to “reorganize” its business and attempt to develop into a profitable corporation. The company still functions on a day-to-day basis other than the fact that all important business decisions have to be agreed upon by a bankruptcy court.

Where as under Chapter 7, the company will stops all it operations and completely shut all its functions. The court assigns a trustee to “liquidate” (sell) the company’s assets. The money so collect is then used to pay off the debt, which would take account both the debts to creditors and investors.

During a payment, the investors are paid first, due to their risk involvement. Bondholders have an advantage over stockholders since bonds stand for the debt of the company and the company has agreed to pay bondholders interest and to return their principal. Where as stockholders own the company, and therefore take on greater risk. On a good day, it is the stockholder who would make more money, but at the same time, as the company goes bankrupt, the stockholders bear to lose, as owners are last in line to be repaid if the company fails. Also remember that under Chapter 11, stockholders are still able to trade the stock, but under Chapter 7 the stock is worthless.

The other creditors are usually secured creditors that have low risk factors since the credit that they extend is usually backed by collateral. Collateral can be the mortgage or other assets of the company. They also stand to be paid first as the company files for corporate bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy relief is one sure way for a person, or a business, to be able to make a fresh start in their financial affairs. Usually, filing for bankruptcy comes after the individual or company has run into extreme financial difficulties, but once they have filed a new bankrupt claim, they are protected from lawsuits and collection harassments from creditors.

Obtaining legal relief from becoming broke is a vehicle provided for under Federal laws. During the course of the bankruptcy claim form process, the assets and the liabilities of the debtor are assessed. Based on the specific situation of the debtor and the amount of debt owed, the type of it to be filed will be determined. Most individuals end up filing a Chapter 7 or filing Chapter 13 one. In most instances, business entities will reorganize their debts under the structure of a Chapter 11 type.

There are some very specific rules and regulations when it comes to filing for bankruptcy and which Chapter is applicable. Because of the complexity of this issue, it is recommended that people get help with bankruptcy from an experienced lawyer who can guide them through the process of attaining bankruptcy relief. Obtaining legal relief from becoming broke is a step that is considered drastic and it should not be undertaken lightly.

In many cases, people decide that seeking legal relief is the course they must take after there has been some sort of extreme financial setback or some type of emergency. Many times the root cause of the financial problems comes because of the loss of a job, a business failure, extended illness or injury, divorce or the death of a family member.

When the financial pressures mount to the breaking point, legal relief can become the only option someone is able to exercise in order to find a way to help debts and secure a clean slate. For many years, there was a significant stigma associated with people who ended up filing for it. However, this stigma has faded somewhat in more recent years, as it is seen more in a light of giving people an opportunity to start over again rather than as a failure.

There are two main types of legal relief from becoming broke. The first type, which was the most common until the 2005 bankruptcy reform legislation, is liquidation. Since the new bankrupt reform rules, most of the time only those with a very low income or those who are considered to be less stable debtors are eligible for the liquidation option. The second type of it is reorganization. This type allows for the debts to be structured and paid over a period of time.

Liquidation bankruptcy relief is governed under the mandates of the Chapter 7 type claim form and can be filed by either businesses or by individuals. When filing for brokeness under Chapter 7, the court issues what is called an “automatic stay,” which stops all attempts to collect any debts that are included in the court record filing.

A bankruptcy trustee is assigned to the case and is responsible to collect any “nonexempt” property, to liquidate it, and then distribute the proceeds of the liquidation of assets to the creditors. The distribution is done in order of priority which is determined by the bankruptcy statues.

In most cases, reorganization bankruptcy relief is implemented in situations where there is sufficient future income that can be used in a repayment plan. Usually the plan is for repayment of a portion of the full debt and the amount of the repayment is determined by the trustee and based on the debtors ability to pay.

Business and individuals with a great deal of debt, file under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In most cases, however, individuals who need to reorganize their debts will file Chapter 13 bankruptcy.