The facts about debt consolidation and the things you might not know.

Over the years various people have struggled with debt of one kind or the other. Over that span there have been various tools in helping them deal with this situation. Recently it seems that the number of people drowning in debt has increased considerably. This has brought the various debt relief programs to the forefront of our minds both because of our heightened awareness of topic and because of increased media coverage and advertisements.

For the most part many of the debt relief programs that are available to people have been around for a long time. Of course there are always those fly by night “eliminate your debt” scams that crop up then go away. For an example the idea you can go to court and threaten to sue the creditors if they don’t eliminate your debt. Beware, that is no better than snake oil and can put you in a much worse situation then what you are right now.

The debt relief programs I am speaking of are valid and legal and have been put in place to assist people in dealing with an unmanageable debt situation. But it is important to know all the details of these options and how each one works.

Being in the industry for many years I have head countless clients say they are looking to do debt consolidation. What they don’t realize is that almost all of the credit card debt relief options are debt consolidation programs.

The definition of a debt consolidation program is a plan that will allow you to consolidate all of your payments into one so that you are not making individual payments to each of your creditors. Now I understand that the way I worded it might not be exactly what you were looking for and the reason for that is that you are thinking of one particular form of debt consolidation, not the broad category.

Let me explain to you each of the debt relief options and how each one of them will help you to consolidate your debt into one monthly payment.

Let’s start off with one of the oldest forms of debt help, which is called Bankruptcy. This option has been around for many years and more recently was amended to make it more difficult to qualify for. What many people do not realize is there are various forms of bankruptcy. Most commonly thought of is chapter 7, where your debt is forgiven and you do not have to pay back anything to the creditors. This however is the most difficult to qualify for. More common is the chapter 13 bankruptcy. This is a debt consolidation program where the courts decide how much you can afford to pay on a monthly base and you pay the trustee who distributes the payments to the creditors. You could end up paying 100% of the debt and that option will be on your credit for the longest amount of time.

The next debt relief option is consumer credit counseling and is commonly thought of by people as a debt onsolidation program. This is where you hire an agency to negotiate your interest rates down on all of your creditors, then you mane one monthly payment to the agency. You end up paying back about 130% of what you owe over 5 to 7 years and the monthly payment you make is typically close to what your minimum payments were for the creditors.

Debt resolution is another option that has gained popularity in recent years. Essentially you hire an attorney or law firm to negotiate your debt for less than what you owe. You then make one monthly deposit into a trust account which is used to settle with the creditors. Since the FTC regulations that were passed in October 2010, this option has gained in popularity throughout the debt relief industry as a way to get around the regulations ban on charging upfront fees.

Many of these debt settlement lawyers will charge you a retainer to start and then charge legal fees that they deduct from each of your monthly deposits throughout the entire program on top of their settlement charges. First of all this will increase your total program cost. Second people assume that by having a debt settlement law firm negotiate their debt, they are protected more and will be able to do a better job.

The reality is that the law firm is not doing the negotiating. They sub contract debt settlement companies to do all of the maintenance and work on your account. Also, they do not protect you since they are only representing you for the purposes of negotiating your debt and nothing more! They do not represent you in court and in many cases will not even help you answer a summons should you receive one. This is evident by the number of class actions law suits and states’ attorneys that are going after these lawyer bases settlement debt consolidation companies.

The final debt consolidation program available is called debt settlement. This is where a reputable accredited company will negotiate with your creditors on your behalf and will allow you to settle for less than your full balances with your creditors. Companies that follow the regulations will not charge you any fees until they have successfully negotiated your accounts. You save your money in a dedicated account which you have full access to and as each creditor is settled with they are paid from that account.

If you would like to hear more details about all of your options then you can speak to a debt analyst with years of experience who can review your situation and give you the information you need to make the right choice. Simply fill out the short form on the right column or click the green button.

February 15, 2012

Which Sort Of Individual Bankruptcy Would be the Ideal For You

For those who have caught yourself in the nasty trap of debts as well as your economic scenario is just not strong sufficient to spend off all these debts, you must be into a dilemma of, what to perform or what not to perform. Might be, you’re planning to file for individual bankruptcy. On the other hand, do you understand that you will discover two kinds of individual bankruptcy and you can pick out only one? The bankruptcy laws have supplied two options for the people today, willing to file for individual bankruptcy. The very first selection is to pick out to go for the straight bankruptcy, i.e. chapter 7 bankruptcy and also the second selection is to pick out the Wage earner plan i.e. chapter 13 bankruptcy. This post intends to clarify these two options for you and also the circumstances in which you can use them. Let us go exploring.

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

It is important for you to know that chapter 7 bankruptcy could be the most prevalent type of bankruptcy and generally is termed as straight or liquidation bankruptcy. In general, when people today speak about individual bankruptcy, they’ve the notion of liquidation bankruptcy in the thoughts. For that reason, you must note that the liquidation bankruptcy is just not the only sort of bankruptcy. As per the chapter 7 bankruptcy, all of your assets are sold off, beneath the supervision from the trustee, appointed by the bankruptcy court. The capital therefore collected, is then applied to spend off the respective debts from the creditors. The creditors get their share as per the priority level, as approved by the bankruptcy court. On the other hand, now with the inclusion from the new bankruptcy laws, not everyone can very easily qualify for this kind of individual bankruptcy. It’s mandatory for you to pass the means test and go through the US government approved credit-counseling agency, prior to you file court petition for chapter 7 individual bankruptcy.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is commonly known as wage earner plan or reorganization individual bankruptcy. As the term suggests, as per this kind of individual bankruptcy, your assets usually are not sold off. Instead, you’re asked by the bankruptcy court to continue together with your small business venture, and spend the reduced claims from the different creditors simultaneously. As per this type of individual bankruptcy, you may be granted your request to spend off the debts in the rate of 75 cents on every dollar, or may perhaps be lesser than that.

The Bankruptcy Lawyer will certainly support those individuals whenever they have submitted for bankruptcy in order that, the prevalent folks tend not to recover from burdened together with the credit debt which can be impossible for them to fork out back.

Tags: attorney, Bankruptcy, Debt, mortgage.