ARE you one of many people who needs to file bankruptcy but you are afraid that it may be the worst mistake you can ever make in your life? Are you thinking about what your friends and family may think if they ever find out about your filing?
If you’ve never owned a home and plan to have one someday, are you thinking that once you file bankruptcy, you can kiss this dream of yours goodbye? (Sadly, a lot of people who ask me about this can’t even save the money for a down payment on a house because they’re so buried in debt.)
In my practice as a bankruptcy lawyer, I hear these questions all the time and I think it’s important that people understand that filing bankruptcy is not the end of the world. As a matter of fact, if bankruptcy is your only option, you may be better off filing bankruptcy first in order to get out of debt so that you can start saving your money to buy a house after two to three years (if buying a home is in your future plans).
Throwing a lot of your hard-earned retirement money or savings to pay your credit card debt every month is an unnecessary waste of financial resources and is not going to help make your financial situation better. It could actually ruin your chances for a secure financial future. The worst thing that can happen to you is to find yourself broke and penniless by the time you retire.
A lot of my clients tell me that they wish they had filed bankruptcy sooner and that they waited too long to make a decision. Some of these people were forced to use all the retirement money they had saved for many years just to avoid bankruptcy for a short while — only to realize in the end that that bankruptcy was unavoidable and should have been their first option, not the last.
If you are struggling to pay bill collectors, have pending lawsuits, judgments, auto repos and are being harassed non-stop by your creditors, what are you doing about it? It’s usually not enough to just say that you are “doing your best to pay what you can.” Can you pay off all these debts on your own without getting any legal help from the bankruptcy court?
Filing bankruptcy is a personal matter and you will find very few people who have filed bankruptcy that will openly talk to you about their experience. So most of the negative things you have heard about bankruptcy come from the people who have never experienced it themselves and do not understand the process. They only tell you what they themselves have heard about bankruptcy and most of it is wrong. Don’t listen to these people unless they are paying your bills.
One of the things I’ve learned in life is to never take financial advice from people who are not doing any better than you are. So if your brother-in-law who is just as broke as you are (or worse) is telling you what you should do about your debt situation, just smile and walk away.
After having filed thousands and thousands of bankruptcy cases for clients, I have personally seen how people’s lives have dramatically improved after obtaining bankruptcy relief. Clients who have lost home through foreclosure have been able to purchase a home again just a few years later.
People with bad credit have been able to rebuild their credit standing again. Life has become normal again for all these people who used to think about nothing but their debt problems day and night. If you are one of these people, I am telling you that there is a better way to live your life than this.
If you’ve done everything you can on your own to deal with your debt problems but nothing has happened up to this point, ask yourself these questions: Where will your situation likely lead? What will happen if you get sued by your creditors and your wages garnished or your bank account frozen? How will your credit score get better if you are not paying your creditors and they continue to report you to the credit bureaus every single month?
If you’ve reached a dead end in your search for a solution to your debt problems, you need to be more realistic about your situation if you want things to change for the better. Of course, bankruptcy is not for everyone and I’m not saying that it is.
But you should at least take the time to find out what your options are. In some cases, it may still be avoided before things go from bad to worse. I would like to help you decide if bankruptcy is right for your situation.
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None of the information herein is intended to give legal advice for any specific situation. Atty. Ray Bulaon has successfully helped thousands of clients in getting out of debt. For a free attorney evaluation of your situation, please call Ray Bulaon Law Offices at TOLL FREE 1 (866) 477-7772.