Is Bankruptcy for Me?

What is Personal Bankruptcy?

Bankruptcy is a Federal Law which allows individuals to either erase or manage certain debt they accumulate in life. One considers Bankruptcy when things have gone wrong with debt such as inability to pay debt, collection notices, lawsuits, foreclosures, repossessions, and wage garnishment.

Bankruptcy is the “emergency brake” of debt management.  In a bankruptcy, one is seeking an order from the court discharging/erasing all unsecured debts, such as credit cards, medical bills, payday loans, repossession deficiencies, and past due utility bills.  Bankruptcy also allows you to create a reasonable and affordable payment plan to cure any arrears on your mortgage, car loan, student loans, or IRS tax debts.

Is Bankruptcy for Me?

Filing Bankruptcy may be the best choice if there is no hope of paying debts back or managing them any longer. Bankruptcy wipes the slate clean (with certain types of debt) to allow one to start over and rebuild his/her credit. Ignoring the debt and doing nothing will lead to lawsuits, continued damage to your credit score, and permit the situation to get worse, never to get better.

The Bankruptcy filing will stop all creditor actions (phone calls, letters, email), bring some peace to your life so you may stress less and sleep better, and save you substantial money in the end.

While it is hard to convince clients of this, Bankruptcy is not something one should be ashamed of. Shane Weaver Law has handled hundreds of bankruptcy cases, and 99% of our clients filed because something tragic or out of the client’s control occurred in life.

Common Reasons for Bankruptcy Filings are:

1. Illness or disability to oneself or a loved one (medical bills)
2. Job loss
3. Divorce
4. Death of a Spouse
5. Assisting a loved one with a financial or personal crisis
6. Arrest or drug addiction of a loved one (parent co-signing for debt)

The Bankruptcy Law is in place because our government and society recognize bad things happen to good people, and debt can then spiral out of control. Bankruptcy is there for that moment in one’s life when what was never expected to happen financially, does happen.