Most of the time your attorney will know which debts will be legally written off in your bankruptcy. But not always, for two reasons.
Here's the good news/bad news about the discharge of debts in a Chapter 13 payment plan compared to the discharge you get in a straight Chapter 7 case.
The point of filing bankruptcy is to get relief from your debts. So, when and how DO those debts get "discharged"--legally written off--in a regular Chapter 7 bankruptcy?
It's often the combination of tools that come with Chapter 13 that allows you to keep your home. Because Chapter 7 has only some of these tools, sometimes it can't do nearly as much for your home as Chapter 13 can.
A mere list of the many ways that Chapter 13 can help save a home can start sounding dry. So here's a powerful example that shows off some of its extraordinary advantages.
Chapter 13 is extraordinary in the number of distinctive ways it can solve debt problems endangering your home. Here are five more ways beyond the five of the last blog.
Chapter 13 is often the best option for holding onto your home. That may be simply because it solves one of your major home debt problems, or instead because it solves a bunch of them all in one package.
Although Chapter 13 is often the go-to prescription for hanging onto a home in financial distress, like most strong medicine it comes with side-effects. The simpler Chapter 7 "straight bankruptcy" may be the better solution for both short-term relief and long-term financial health.
If you are behind on your car or truck loan and a Chapter 7 case will not help you enough, file a Chapter 13 case instead so that you can keep that vehicle.
Your car or truck loan may be the most important debt you have. Chapter 7 puts you in the driver seat for dealing with this debt.
Your vehicle loan, home mortgage, account at the appliance or electronics store, and maybe a debt that's resulted in a judgment lien--these debts with collateral are the ones that grab the most attention during a bankruptcy case. And that includes the attention of the creditors, very interested in "their" collateral.
In most Chapter 7 "straight bankruptcies," most debts are legally written off, especially debts that are not secured by any collateral and don't belong to any of the special "priority" categories of debt. But how about in a Chapter 13 payment plan? What determines whether these creditors get paid, and if so how much?
Your "left-over debts"--those which are neither secured by collateral nor belong to any of the special "priority" categories--often don't drive the decision about whether to file Chapter 7 or 13. But you still need to know how these "general unsecured debts" are handled under these two options.
The most practical questions you likely have if you are considering bankruptcy is what it will do to each of your debts.
The closing of your business, followed by your personal bankruptcy filing, often ends threatened or ongoing business litigation against you. But here are three situations where that litigation could well continue regardless of the bankruptcy.
