I have a bachelors degree in Paralegal Studies and I''ve worked as a paralegal ever since I graduated. My boss specializes in bankruptcy and family law. Right now he''s weeding out the family law/domestic cases and focusing on bankruptcies. I work on nearly all of the bankruptcy cases that come through our office, from beginning to end, and I love it. I''m a reasonably nosy person so I think it''s sort of fun to go through peoples bills and finances and see what kind of hole they''re in. The most amount of consumer credit card debt that I''ve seen was around 190K and we''ve had people file bankruptcy for as little as 10K in debt.
Five facts about bankruptcy that most average consumers don''t know:
1. It will not ruin your credit for life. Sure, for about 2 years or so your credit won''t be steller. But, you can begin to reestablish credit immediately after discharge and if you are responsible then you''ll be just fine. If you can''t figure out how to be responsible then you''re SOL.
2. There are certain credit issuers that blacklist bankruptcy customers - meaning that if you have an account with XYZ and then file bk on them you''ll never be able to open another account with them ever again. There are also some that blacklist people who file bk period (which is against the law, by the way).
3. People who file for bankruptcy are, for the most part, not deadbeats. Yes, we do have some "serial filers" that have come through my office but the vast majority of our clients have come by some really hard times and have not been successful in negotiating with their creditors. In this economy particularly we have many clients that were living within their means and then lost their job(s) putting them in a dire financial situation.
4. You can only file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy (total discharge of debt) every 8 years (from the date of file) but you can file as many Chapter 13 cases (bill repayment plan) as the judge will let you.
5. If you want to clean up your credit after bankruptcy or just in general then you should check out
www.creditboards.com. I found this website while doing some post-bankruptcy counseling research for my boss and I must say that it is great. I''ve never posted there, but I am a member so I can have access to the protected forums and I am able to pass along valuable information to my clients.
