Bankruptcy Claim
August 27th, 2010Every one of us goes through a bad patch of financial mishaps occasionally. While some of us manage to get out of them unscathed, others just get mired in the quicksand. For such people, a bankruptcy claim often comes to their rescue. This is a means of ending those hostile calls that come for money collection or the harassment of creditors. Of course filing a bankruptcy claim is not something that you can do lightly.
A bankruptcy claim does not mean that you will be free to walk away from your debts. Filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 entails a complete liquidation of all your assets. This essentially goes to pay some of your creditors. As per court orders, you will be left with enough to start afresh again. Several debts will be erased this way. However, the qualification for Chapter 7 bankruptcy is not that easy. Under Chapter 13 you essentially file for bankruptcy and will be a given a repayment schedule. A court appointed financier will have complete control over your income and will be in charge of distributing evenly as per the schedule between all your creditors.
Filing a bankruptcy claim has to be done after careful thought. For one, it will affect your financial standing. You will be blacklisted on all creditor lists for a long time and will have to start your credit building from scratch. Bankruptcy can also have a very huge impact on your personal life. It can affect the lifestyle you and your family are accustomed to and this sometimes leads to unpleasantness.
While in some states retaining your home and car forms a part of exemption, in others you will be forced to liquidate even those assets to pay off your debts. If you do not have a mortgage or a car loan in your name, you have a better chance of retaining these two major assets.
You should know that filing for bankruptcy in itself is not a cheap affair. You will have to hire the services of an experienced lawyer who will charge you by the hour. Without an attorney, the process involves spending a few hundred dollars. With a lawyer, and this is needed most of the times, you end up adding one or two thousand dollars to the entire process.
Bankruptcy claims while beneficial in some cases, can work out negatively in others. You have to think long and hard before you actual decide on doing it.