Preserve Your Ability to File Bankruptcy at the Time You Want
Sometimes the timing of your bankruptcy filing hardly matters, but other times it’s huge. The three examples in this blog should convince you that you want to avoid being rushed to file your case because a creditor sued you earlier and is now garnishing your wages. Instead you want to preserve the ability to file […]
The Dangers of Allowing a Creditor to Get a Judgment Against You
What you don’t know CAN hurt you, if it’s a judgment against you by a creditor. Judgments can hurt in three big ways. 1) They enable the creditor to use powerful collection mechanisms against you to collect the debt. 2) A judgment can rush you into filing bankruptcy at a legally disadvantageous time. 3) And […]
What Makes Your Bankruptcy Simple, and Not So Simple?
If your financial life is legally simple, your bankruptcy will likely be simple. What is it about your financial life that makes for a not so simple bankruptcy case? Bankruptcy can be very flexible. If your finances are complicated, bankruptcy likely has a decent way to deal with all the messes. My new clients are […]
Final Reasons to Get Legal Advice Before Deciding to Sell Your Home
Bankruptcy gives you a wide range of tools that can help you keep your home or sell it on your own schedule. Many of these tools provide surprising advantages for you. Especially when it comes to your home, know your options before you make decisions. This is the last of a series of three […]
Know This Before Deciding to Sell Your Home
If you’re a homeowner who is selling his or her home for any of the following three reasons, think again: 1) you can’t afford the house payments, 2) you owe income taxes with a tax lien on your house, and/or 3) your mortgage modification application was rejected. A couple blogs ago I told you […]
10 Big Reasons to Get Legal Advice about Bankruptcy Before Selling Your Home
The SINGLE overarching reason to get advice from a bankruptcy attorney before selling your home is to save money, possibly a great deal of money. I’ll tell you ten ways to do so—three today and then the rest in a couple blogs next Tuesday and Thursday. 1. Avoiding judgment liens: If some creditor has sued […]
Get a “Fresh Start” in Bankruptcy for Your Assets, Not Just Your Debts
Bankruptcy helps both sides of your balance sheet. Getting a financial fresh start means not just getting relieved of your debts, but also protecting your essential assets. You can preserve this crucial benefit of bankruptcy by not selling, using up, or borrowing against your protected assets BEFORE the filing of your bankruptcy case. It is […]
See an Attorney BEFORE Losing Your Vehicle to Repossession or Surrender
You may be able to keep a vehicle you thought you couldn’t afford to pay for. Chapter 13 allows you to pay less per month and less overall on a vehicle loan, under certain conditions. This blog is one of a series on the mistakes people make before seeing an attorney about filing bankruptcy. As […]
Avoid Being Nice to “Special” Creditors Before Filing Bankruptcy
One of the best ways to hurt one of your creditors is by being nice to him, her, or it. Specifically, if, before you file a bankruptcy, you pay a creditor much more than you are paying at that time to your other creditors, then that favored creditor may be required to give back that […]
“If Only I’d Gone to See My Bankruptcy Attorney Sooner . . . ”
Those are the words I hate to hear from a new client. Bankruptcy attorneys are in the business because we truly want to help people. It’s an emotionally tough area of law, dealing all the time with clients who are financially hurting. Usually my client are also hurting in other ways, related to what caused […]