Hello I’m Joseph Vacek the bankruptcy attorney here at Bailey & Galyen. Today we are going to go over some signs that bankruptcy might be appropriate for you.
One of the first signs is that you can’t make your minimum necessary living expenses. That would be using credit cards to pay for groceries, gas and some other necessities. And then on top of that if you are no longer able to make minimum payments. And that’s going to lead us into our next aspect that is when you start defaulting on your credit.
At first you are going to start receiving phone calls and collection letters. This will generally be on a daily basis. The next step after that is going to be lawsuits that’s where you creditors file a lawsuit against you seeking a money judgement. The third aspect would be once those judgements become final. Now what will happen after a judgement becomes final is a couple of things.
You may receive some post judgement discovery which are interrogatories. If you choose to ignore those eventually your creditors are going to ask for a motion to compel which is going to get an order from a judge compelling you to answer and possibly sanctions. Another thing they may do is get a receiver appointed. A receiver can then turn around and freeze your bank accounts, seize any assets that you have and basically make your life very complicated and stressful.
Another aspect will be when it comes to secured property, let’s say your house. If you’re not making mortgage payments you are eventually going to go in to foreclosure. A foreclosure is whenever they sell your house and eventually evict you.
How can bankruptcy help in these aspects? We’ll go in reverse order. With a foreclosure you can do a Chapter 13 which allows you to catch up on your arrearages in other words your past due mortgage payments and allow you to get current on your loan to keep your house and thus keep from being foreclosed on and evicted. What else can bankruptcy do? Both Chapter 7 and 13 can help you with those judgements. It will just make them go away, it will stop your bank account from being frozen, it will stop your assets from being seized by receivers, it will stop any post judgement activities that are going on. Going further, before the lawsuit is even filed or when you realize that you are just in over your head bankruptcy might be the solution. What does bankruptcy really do? It’s giving you a fresh start. It allows you to have piece of mind, less stress and just start over with your life.
If you are in any one of these categories please give me a call and let’s discuss your personal situation.
