There is really only two reasons you should file for bankruptcy protection- to eliminate debt in order to get a fresh financial start and to protect what assets you have from collectors who might legally take them. So, why file for bankruptcy protection if you do not have any assets to protect?

The obvious answer to the question is to eliminate debt in order to get a fresh financial start, but before going into detail of what filing under those circumstances may legally entail, it might be wise to understand what exactly filing for bankruptcy is. Filing for bankruptcy is a legal proceeding designed to protect both creditor and debtor and to allow the honest person or business to work their way out of a bad financial situation, or in some cases, to completely start fresh.

The key word in this definition is “honest.” Bankruptcy fraud is a crime. While difficult to generalize across legal entities, common criminal acts under bankruptcy laws typically involve concealment of assets, concealment or destruction of documents, conflicts of interest, fraudulent claims, false statements or declarations, and fee fixing. Falsifications on bankruptcy forms often constitute perjury. The new bankruptcy laws which are more generous to honest debtors were never intended to allow deadbeats and criminals to have a loop hole in order to beat their debts.

When you do not have any assets to protect, including an income that can be garnished, you are considered “collection proof.” For all practical purposes, if you can withstand the assault of harassing collection agencies for the statute of limitations, you will overcome most debt and will not need to file for bankruptcy.

Otherwise, if you still have income to garnish and want an honest way out of the stress associated with debt collection activities, you certainly might want to consider filing for bankruptcy.

Here are some advantages for filing bankruptcy honest debtors without assets might want to consider. Filing bankruptcy can:

• Eliminate the legal obligation to pay most or all of your debts. This is called a “discharge” of debts.
• Stop wage garnishments.
• Stop debt collection harassment.
• Restore or prevent termination of utility service for nonpayment of previous bills.
• Get your drivers license back under certain circumstances.
• Allow you to keep all non-exempt property.
• Can extend certain tax obligations, student loans, or other such qualifying debts.

If you decide you want to be relieved from the stress associated with debt by filing a bankruptcy, common sense indicates you might need a bankruptcy lawyer in order to help you understand complex bankruptcy laws and how they may apply in your particular situation.

If you determine you are in need of relief from the stress associated with debt and you live in or around the metropolitan counties of Monmouth or Ocean, New Jersey, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.

Many of you first time bankruptcy filers have common questions about how filing a bankruptcy can affect your credit history. Here are some possible answers to five questions you commonly ask:

1. How do you get phone service after declaring bankruptcy?

   You most likely should have no problem getting a utility in your name, but you might expect to have to pay a larger deposit when they find out you have a bankruptcy on your record. A bankruptcy on your credit report might also limit what type of phone service may be available.

   An alternative to a standard phone service might be either a prepaid service or an internet phone service. These options are usually free of large deposits.

2. If you filed for bankruptcy ten years ago, what is the date that this should be removed from your credit report?

   The rule is 10 years from the date filed. Some credit agencies will remove a Chapter 13 from their report as soon as 7 years from the date filed, but they are not required to remove the bankruptcy until the 10 year period is over.

3. Ten years after a bankruptcy, are all included accounts removed from your credit report?

   Technically, accounts should drop off your credit reports no later than after seven years or the date of the statute of limitations for your state and that particular debt. All accounts that have been discharged through a bankruptcy should drop off your credit report the moment your bankruptcy discharges the debts, and the discharges are reported to the agencies.

   You will need to dispute any account that has not been dropped from your credit report within the time frame it should have. The accounts should at least show no more than “discharged through bankruptcy.”

4. How do you get a credit card debt that was included in a bankruptcy removed from your credit report?

   Write a letter of dispute to each credit agency and send the letters certified. For identification purposes, provide your driver’s license number, your social security number, your address, and the state in which you live. You also might want to provide your telephone number, but that is optional.

   Enclose within the letter a copy of your bankruptcy document showing the referenced account. Ask the credit reporting agency to remove all but the “discharged through bankruptcy” notations from your report. Give the agencies time to correct their error and then request a free credit report to check for the correction.

5. Can bankruptcy be removed from your credit report if you filed but did not complete the proceedings?

   Once you file for bankruptcy, the filing can remain on your credit report for up to 10 years, even if the bankruptcy was dismissed. Filing bankruptcy is a serious matter and much thought should go into the process before you file.

Bankruptcy laws and associated credit issues can be complicated, and common sense indicates you might need a bankruptcy lawyer in order to help you understand how these complex laws and issues may apply in your particular situation.

All bill collectors, regardless of their origination, must abide by the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, a federal law passed as part of the Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1978. It is sometimes used in conjunction with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Part of the reason these debt collection laws were passed was to eliminate abusive practices in the collection of consumer debts, to promote fair debt collection, and to provide consumers with an avenue for disputing and obtaining validation of debt information in order to ensure the information’s accuracy.

The Act creates guidelines under which debt collectors may conduct business, defines rights of consumers involved with debt collectors, and prescribes penalties and remedies for violations of the Act.

As part of the validation process in collections, a debtor has the legal right to know the name of the one claiming to be their creditor and the address of the same. Unfortunately, not all bill collectors are willing to provide you with real names and addresses up front, and with the buying and selling of debt so prevalent in today’s society, it is sometimes very hard to know who your creditors really are, much less their addresses.

These facts evoke the question, “Is there a resource for finding out collection agencies names and addresses for bankruptcy?”

There are basically two ways for finding out this information. First of all, you can obtain a credit report from all three major credit reporting bureaus. You get a free report once a year from each. Most creditors contact information in the form of names and addresses will be listed on the report if you have defaulted on payments.

Secondly, if the contact information is not available on any of your credit reports, you will most likely have a telephone number of the bill collectors trying to collect from you. If you contact them, or better yet have your attorney contact them, tell them you are filing bankruptcy and need their contact information, they are required by law to give you the information.

As a matter of fact, failing to give you the information could lead to the bill collectors failing to get any kind of settlement from a bankruptcy filing, even if they own the debt. Before any creditor can receive payments of a debt through a bankruptcy court, they must be listed as a creditor and make a formal claim to the court. When they fail to do this, they have given up all their rights for collection of the debt.

Bankruptcy laws can be complicated, and common sense indicates you might need a bankruptcy lawyer in order to help you understand how these complex laws may apply in your particular situation.

If you live in or around the metropolitan areas of Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.

A reaffirmation agreement in United States bankruptcy law refers to an agreement made between a creditor and the debtor that waives discharge of a debt that would otherwise be discharged in a pending bankruptcy proceeding.

The results of a reaffirmation agreement between a secured creditor and the filing debtor is that the debtor is guaranteed against in future seizures or foreclosures on the property as long as he or she makes timely payments.

Concerning reaffirmation, this personal bankruptcy question was posted on the internet in 2011 in a bankruptcy discussion: “Can you reaffirm only one home in a bankruptcy if you own two?”

The answer to the question is that it depends on what type of bankruptcy you file, the amount of equity you have in each home, state and federal exemptions, and the US Bankruptcy Court trustee.

There are basically two types of bankruptcies most individuals can file- a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13.

If you file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a wage earner’s plan that enables you to keep your assets by devising a three or five year plan to pay off your debts, you will have the choice to reaffirm either of the homes.

A Chapter 7 bankruptcy, commonly called liquidation, is where non-exempt assets are liquidated to pay off your creditors. You may not have a choice about reaffirmation on either of the two homes in a Chapter 7, depending on the circumstances and the bankruptcy trustee.

If either of the homes has equity and the equity is not protected by an exemption, the home may be sold to satisfy unsecured creditor claims. The bankruptcy court trustee decides whether or not there is enough equity to warrant the liquidation of the asset. If a home is liquidated, obviously, you cannot reaffirm the contract.

If neither home has equity, the bankruptcy court will allow you to reaffirm either or both of the homes under a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court trustee may also allow you to reaffirm a home with equity if he or she decides not to liquidate the home.

Can you reaffirm only one home in a bankruptcy if you own two? Yes, it is possible, but many bankruptcy lawyers will tell you it is not a good idea to reaffirm a debt when you file for bankruptcy. If you waive the discharge on a given asset, you cannot claim the asset in a bankruptcy case up to eight years after the bankruptcy closes.

Bankruptcy laws can be complicated, and common sense indicates you might need a bankruptcy lawyer in order to help you understand how reaffirmation rules may apply in your particular situation.

If you live in or around the metropolitan areas of Providence, Fall River, or Warwick, Rhode Island and Maine, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.

What do you do if your ex wants to declare bankruptcy? First of all, it is important you understand that it is the Constitutional right of every individual in America to file for bankruptcy protection if they perceive the need. So whatever you do about an ex-spouse filing, you should legally respect their right to file and still protect yourself and your assets.

Any filing of bankruptcy by an ex-spouse can complicate asset issues. Even though you have a divorce decree saying who gets what from your divorce, there will still be legal implications that must be dealt with if your spouse files a bankruptcy. Any child and spousal support may be temporarily affected by a bankruptcy, and any unfinished business like the non-transferal of mortgage titles can create problems in bankruptcy for a spouse not filing.

Child and spousal support in bankruptcy.

Although child and alimony support cannot be discharged in bankruptcy cases unless undue hardship is proven, the automatic stay of bankruptcy can postpone these types of payments until the bankruptcy court can deal with them.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the simplest type of bankruptcy, a bankruptcy trustee will gather and sell your non-exempt property, and he will use the proceeds from the sale in order to pay your creditors. Child and spousal support, although placed as a first priority payment by the trustee, will not be paid unless and until liquidated funds are available for payment.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy, commonly called a wage earner’s plan, enables individuals with regular income to develop a plan to repay all or part of their unsecured debts over three or five years. Here, child and spousal support will be paid first by the trustee as soon as the plan is approved and the trustee collects the payments from the filing debtor.

Unfinished business and non-transferal of titles after divorce.

A spouse not getting a titled asset in a divorce decree but still having their name attached to the title can suddenly find there self being pursued by a collection department representing the lien on the loan for the titled asset. This can hurt your credit and can cost you money to undo the wrong.

If your Ex files a Chapter 7, he or she can potentially have their responsibility for any unsecured or secured debt discharged. As the surviving spouse on a secured title, you may be sued for any deficiencies not satisfied and be responsible for half of the tax obligations.

If your ex files a Chapter 13, you can be better protected as an ex-spouse on unfinished business, but there can still be complications that may require your legal attention.

What Do You Do if your Ex Wants to Declare Bankruptcy? You might want to hire a bankruptcy lawyer to help you understand how these complex laws may apply in your particular situation.

If you live in or around the metropolitan area of Nashville, Tennessee, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.

This personal bankruptcy question was posted on the internet in 2011 in a bankruptcy discussion: “I have multiple mortgages, what can I do?”

If the debtor is asking about multiple mortgages on one home or if the debtor is asking about mortgages on more than one property, the bankruptcy question can be answered, although be it differently.

In either case, what happens to the mortgages depends on what type of bankruptcy you file. There are basically two types of bankruptcies most individuals can file- a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13.

A Chapter 7 bankruptcy, commonly called liquidation of your assets, is normally the simplest and quickest form of bankruptcy. A trustee that is appointed by the court will gather and sell your non-exempt property, and he will use the proceeds from the sale in order to pay your creditors.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy, commonly called a wage earner’s plan, enables individuals with regular income to develop a plan to repay all or part of their unsecured debts over three or five years.

Bankruptcy and multiple mortgages on one property.

When you own two mortgages for the same property, there is a primary lien and a secondary lien on the property. The primary lien holder is the one who loaned you money to buy the property in the beginning.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, any secondary mortgage will be turned to an unsecured debt if the value of the home has dropped below the value of the primary loan. The unsecured loan will be prioritized according to bankruptcy law, and what the liquidated assets cannot pay on the debt will be discharged. The secondary lien will remain but the loan value will be gone.

In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, any secondary lien will be turned into an unsecured debt if the value of the home has dropped below the value of the primary loan. If this happens, the secondary lien can be stripped. This unsecured debt will be prioritized just like in a Chapter 7 but the difference is that it will be part of the pay back plan like any other unsecured debt. You will have to pay back as much of the debt in the time frame allowed with the disposable income designated as part of your plan.

Bankruptcy and multiple mortgages on more than one property.

In this case, each property will have its own primary lien holder. Any secondary lien is treated like secondary liens on one property. Mostly, multiple properties raise legalities over state and federal exemptions.

In a Chapter 7 case, most property not considered your homestead is treated as non-exempt property and subject to being liquidated. Each primary mortgage on non-exempt property will most likely be liquidated if there is equity in the property, or the court can allow it to be foreclosed at some point if there is no equity in the property and you have defaulted on the loan.

In a Chapter 13 case, the non-exempt properties that have a mortgage are treated like any other secured properties. If you want to keep the property you have to catch up on all of your payments and still make the payments to your plan. Any secondary mortgages on investment property can be stripped.

With the housing industry still trying to recuperate from the recent economic downturn, many of you who have been foreclosed on are wondering how you can recover your credit and begin over. Many are asking the question, “Can a foreclosure be removed from your credit report after the property has been taken back?”

The immediate answer to the question is that the Fair Credit Reporting Act provides the guidelines in which foreclosures are reported, and it allows foreclosures to remain on your credit records for up to seven years. Since the information is public information, unless there is a court order to have it removed or a voluntary response from the reporting creditor to remove it, it most likely will remain on your credit report even if you have taken the property back.

However, there are extenuating circumstances that can change whether or not the information remains on the reports. There is a difference between a mortgage company filing a foreclosure lawsuit and actually having the house foreclosed.

If you have reclaimed the property by catching up on your payments or by selling the property, there is a good chance you can get the credit agencies to remove the foreclosure from the reports.

In order for there to be a voluntary dismissal of a foreclosure, both parties must agree to the dismissal. You do that when you catch up on your payments to the mortgage company. Your mortgage company in return is obligated to dismiss the foreclosure by contacting the court and reporting to them you are caught up. If they do not do this, you can require them to do so. Your county courthouse will have a record of the court dismissal, and it too is public record.

You can get a copy of the public record from your courthouse, present the information to all the major credit reporting agencies, and dispute your credit record as being inaccurate. The credit bureaus are required to validate your information with the mortgage lender.

After a certain amount of time, the credit agencies should let you know the results of the dispute. If the mortgage lender does not or refuses to validate the information, you can send copies of the dismissal to the credit reporting agencies via certified mail, and you can have the agencies notate the inaccuracies on your report.

Theses actions should theoretically improve your credit scores, but even if your scores are not helped that much, the new positive information on your credit reports should help to offset the negative effects of the foreclosure record.

Foreclosure laws, just like bankruptcy laws, can be very complicated at times. To understand how they apply in your particular situation, it might be wise to employ a lawyer to help you understand how the complex laws may apply in your particular situation.

If you determine you are in need of relief from the stress associated with debt and you live in or around the metropolitan areas of Charlotte, Gastonia, or Rock Hill, North Carolina, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.

Bankruptcy involves a lot of complicated legal issues, and many first time bankruptcy filers have a lot of questions about bankruptcy. As an example of some of the complexity, here are answers to four bankruptcy questions.

What happens when someone you co-signed for has filed for bankruptcy?

As a cosigner, you are saying you are capable of and intend to repay a debt when the borrower cannot pay, the borrower refuses to pay, or the borrower files for bankruptcy protection.

As the cosigner of a borrower who has defaulted on a loan, regardless of your intentions to pay back the loan, you will receive negative credit reporting just as the borrower will who has defaulted.

Nevertheless, if you are not able or willing to repay the debt, you should not cosign any note for a loan. So, in effect, if the borrower files for bankruptcy protection, you will have to pay off the debt or the creditors can come after you.

When did the chapter 7 bankruptcy laws change from 7 to 10 years for credit reporting?

Actually, the laws have never changed. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy will be placed on your credit reports for up to 10 years. A Chapter 13 bankruptcy can be placed on your credit reports for up to 7 years. Under some circumstances, credit agencies may remove the bankruptcy from the reports earlier.

After being dismissed from bankruptcy can you refile for it immediately after?

When a bankruptcy is dismissed by a bankruptcy court, the process is stopped and the effect is similar to the bankruptcy not taking place. There are two kinds of bankruptcy dismissals- voluntary and involuntary. Depending on which type of dismissal occurs will determine whether or not and when you can refile a bankruptcy.

You can refile a voluntary dismissal in bankruptcy immediately most of the time, but if your case was involuntarily dismissed because of fraud issues, a bankruptcy court can limit you on whether of not you can ever file again.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the time frame for refiling a bankruptcy after voluntarily dismissing it and the number of times your case has been dismissed within a certain time frame are important to the bankruptcy process. Both of these circumstances can have an influence on the automatic stay of the next bankruptcy you file.

Can you buy a car with cash and then declare bankruptcy?

There is a six month look back when you file any bankruptcy. That means the bankruptcy court will look back at least for the past six months to see how you have spent your income. They can look back further if there is any indication fraud has taken place. Buying a car with cash right before a bankruptcy can be viewed as preferential treatment toward your debts. A bankruptcy court could potentially take the money back from the institution you bought the vehicle. In return, the institution would most likely take the vehicle back from you.

As you can see from these illustrations, bankruptcy laws can be very complicated. It is recommended you seek out a bankruptcy lawyer who may help you understand how these complicated laws might apply in your particular situation.

All kinds of financial situations can crop up after a divorce, especially if you leave loose ends undone. One of the biggest financial controversies between two adults who divorce is over the mortgage of the home. How will an ex-spouse’s bankruptcy affect you if you had a joint mortgage?

Even though you have a divorce decree saying who gets what, there are legal implications that must be dealt with in a mortgage contract before any transfer of ownership passes. Mortgage contracts are very legal documents, and there is a process called “closing” that must occur before the documents of title can be transferred. If you mix a bankruptcy court in with the process of a divorce adding an unresolved mortgage contract, you will have a recipe for a potentially legal entangled mess.

A spouse not getting the mortgaged home in a divorce decree, but still having their name attached to the title, can suddenly find there self being pursued by a collection department representing the mortgage company. If you have not legally transferred title, the mortgage company has every legal right to go after both signing parties of the mortgage documents.

Even if you present a divorce decree to the mortgage company stating you are no longer the owner of the property, you will most likely be included in any foreclosure on the property until you legally transfer the title. A mortgage company might feel like they have no other legal recourse than to deal with the entities they made the contract with in the beginning.

One of the things that can stop the collection actions of a mortgage company is for either party of the divorce to file a bankruptcy. The moment you file a bankruptcy, a judge will order all collection actions to cease, an important feature called the automatic stay. The automatic stay, applicable to all types of bankruptcy filings, means that the mere request for bankruptcy protection automatically stops and brings to a cessation certain lawsuits, foreclosures, utility shut-offs, evictions, repossessions, garnishments, attachments, and debt collection harassment.

During the time of the bankruptcy process, both spouses of the mortgage contract will be protected against any further actions of the mortgage company’s collection department by the automatic stay, but when the bankruptcy process is finished, the mortgage company can potentially begin the foreclosure process again.

A foreclosure might have an effect on both of the signing spouses. Upon foreclosing, the mortgage company can potentially seize the property, report to credit agencies both spouses are in default, and hold the non-filing spouse responsible for any monetary deficiencies they might lose on the sale of the home. The filing spouse will most likely have had his or her deficiencies discharged in the bankruptcy process.

What all this means to a non-filing spouse is that you can be sued for the deficiencies, or the deficiencies can become tax liabilities not protected by bankruptcy discharge. A bankruptcy lawyer is one of the few who might be able to help you legally untangle such a mess.

This personal bankruptcy question was posted on the internet in 2011 in a bankruptcy discussion: “Will you be able to purchase a car or a home after filing bankruptcy?”

The answer depends on the individual or individuals filling. There are only two ways the filers can make this happen.

The old time way is to pay cash for your car or home. If you can discipline yourself to the point of putting money back on a regular basis, you can pay cash for either a home or a car.

The second and fastest way to purchase a car or home today is to borrow the money in the form of a loan. For bankruptcy filers, getting a loan can be an inconvenience but not an impossibility.

A bankruptcy is reported to the three reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union, where it remains on the reports for up to ten years. Since credit reporting is public information, creditors can find out this information by simply subscribing from the agencies.

Creditors can view the reports and learn from them your credit reporting scores. They use this information to determine what type of risk you will be in paying off a loan. How a creditor views a bankruptcy filing may be a surprise to many individuals.

Filing a personal bankruptcy is viewed by many creditors as a reasonable response to handling a bad financial situation, and most creditors are aware of the fact you cannot declare bankruptcy again for up to eight years. Therefore, some creditors are willing to risk loaning you money but with a much higher interest rate.

As far as getting a loan for a home, government backed loan institutions are prevented from discriminating against you because of a bankruptcy filing. You can get a loan for a home as long as you show that your credit scores are improving and you have income to handle the payments. Loan institutions not backed by the US Government make their loans based on their own policies.

Car loans are looked at a little differently than home loans. Loans are normally available to former bankruptcy filers as soon as their credit scores begin to recover, usually around 24 months after filing. Once your credit scores begin to rise above a certain point, you can get a car loan, sometimes with decent interest rates.

Will you be able to purchase a car or a home after filing bankruptcy? Yes, there is life after bankruptcy!

Bankruptcy laws can be complicated, and common sense indicates you might need a bankruptcy lawyer in order to help you understand how these complex laws may apply in your particular situation.

If you determine you are in need of relief from the stress associated with debt and you live in or around the metropolitan counties of Bergen or Passaic, New Jersey, contact us here today at www.betterbankruptcy.com .We will help you find a bankruptcy attorney in your area that will help you with any questions you may have on bankruptcy law.