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You are not required to have an attorney to file bankruptcy and you are permitted to prepare your petition yourself or pay someone to prepare the documents for you. You should be very careful with trying to represent yourself or trusting another non-attorney to prepare your petition. Quite often, those that wish to represent themselves have to attend multiple hearings that are unnecessary had they just filed the petition correctly from the beginning.

This question, or some form of it, is asked by virtually every person that comes in to see us to discuss their financial problems. The answer is usually fairly simple. By the time they have come in to see us, their credit is already ruined! This doesn't necessarily mean that they have a bad credit score. Some folks manage to keep making minimum payments each month. Unfortunately, this is often done by taking cash advances against another card and or borrowing money from a payday loan store.

Everything that relates to a credit report for a consumer in our country is governed by a
federal law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is also referred to as the FCRA. This federal
law is found at 15 USC § 1681. Pursuant to this law, the FCRA regulates the permissible

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is found at 15 USC § 1692. It is a very powerful federal consumer statute packed into just six pages. The FDCPA was enacted by Congress on September 20, 1977 and became effective six months later. In formulating the Act, Congress articulated the purposes for the enactment of legislation as follows: “There is abundant evidence of the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices by many debt collectors.

We often hear about corporations filing for bankruptcy reorganization. American Airlines, General Motors, Chrysler and Lehman Brothers are just a sampling of those which have filed to restructure their debt through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Here in Alabama, we have seen Jefferson County file for bankruptcy reorganization pursuant to Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. Family Farmers and Fisherman are allowed to restructure their debt utilizing Chapter 12 of the bankruptcy code.

This is a question that I am asked quite often and the simple answer is yes! Unfortunately, many people get involved with pay day lenders just trying to make ends meet. They then get into a vicious cycle of paying exorbitant interest on a post-dated check every week out of fear that the pay day lender will present the check to their bank and that it will bounce i.e. be returned as non-sufficient funds.

The average person who is contemplating bankruptcy relief works hard every day to take care of their family and a disruption to their bank account can be devastating.  Generally speaking, the funds in a bank account can be protected but there are certain issues regarding bank accounts and the banking industry in general that you will want to be aware of if you are considering filing for bankruptcy.

When a Veteran submits a claim for VA disability, there are very strict deadlines in place if the Veteran does not initially get the exact disability compensation that he or she thinks should be awarded. Once a Veteran receives a letter denying in whole or in part the Veteran’s claim, the Veteran has one year from the date of that letter, which is on the top part of the letter, to submit a Notice of Disagreement and notice of Intent to Appeal.

Many people that come to see us about bankruptcy are concerned about losing their property.  There is a misconception that, upon filing for bankruptcy protection from one's creditors,  the court will take your home, car, and furniture.  The truth is that, in the vast majority of bankruptcy cases filed by individuals, absolutely no property is taken or sold by the court.

There are certain time limitations on filing repeated bankruptcies. However, there is almost never a time that you cannot file a chapter 13 bankruptcy if you are facing a financial hardship and need the benefit of the automatic stay in order to stop your creditors from pursuing you with garnishments, foreclosure, repossession or other harassing collection efforts. (See my blog post of 9/24/2012 for further explanation of the automatic stay).