Lacking the money to pay off debts is never a pleasant experience and just one month of lacking the proper payment can cause your debts to spiral downward into uncontrollable amounts. Eventually, the situation can seem hopeless. Perhaps, your monthly fee might even exceed your monthly income, making repayment seem like a hopeless dream.
If you’re ever in such a situation, there might not be any solution except filing for bankruptcy. Although the thought often sounds uncouth to people, filing for bankruptcy can be the first step in a positive direction. Filing for bankruptcy via Chapter 7 can mean a total reset on your life that sparks a period of austerity and better management.
Chapter 7
There are many types of bankruptcy, and Chapter 7 is one of the most applicable ones for most individuals. Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy means you essentially admit you cannot pay your unsecured debts. Your nonexempt assets are subsequently liquidated to pay off what is possible, and you are free to restart your life on a more positive track.
Chapter 7 is the best solution if income is your primary barrier to repayment of debts. If you have a steady income, you may be required to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy (where you work out a more suitable repayment plan) instead.
Filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
Chapter 7 bankruptcy begins with a credit-counseling course in which you learn the implications of filing for bankruptcy. This can give you a better grasp of the financial factors involved in making a decision and help you either solidify your intent or seek other solutions to paying your debts.
After you definitively decide to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you need to begin the paperwork. Official bankruptcy forms that ask for all the pertinent information exist and can be easily accessible. Beginning with this step, hiring a bankruptcy attorney in Phoenix, AZ can help because a lawyer can provide the professional and experiential knowledge needed for all your information to be in order.
After you and your lawyer sort through all the paper documentation needed for your case, you need to attend a meeting of creditors to answer any questions they may have about your case. This might sound daunting, but, in reality, creditors rarely show up to the meetings and they typically go by very quickly.
After this meeting, another mandatory counseling session is in order, this time to discuss the best ways to budget your money for the future. This allows the government to make sure you’re set on an upward path, so you need to inform the court after you have completed this step for your filing to be successful.
Finally, if everything goes well (and it usually does, especially if you have a lawyer), a bankruptcy court will formally discharge you of any debts you may have, a process that can take two to three months. Any nonexempt property you might have will be liquidated to pay the money, and your debt is legally absolved.
Bankruptcy Lawyers
As mentioned above, having a good lawyer support you through the process is crucial to making sure your case is successful. It may seem strange to pay someone to deal with your debt problems, but lawyers can ultimately make the situation turn out for the better by offering both expert advice on the financial half of the problem and professional experience with the legal aspects of the filing.
To make sure someone’s always there to check your paperwork and inform you about potential options that you might not known were available, hire a bankruptcy attorney today to help you reset your monetary problems and start a new life free of debt.
Author Bio:

Benjamin Taylor is a zealous attorney who fights hard for his clients. He is an Honors College graduate with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance from Arizona State University. He earned his Juris Doctor from the top tier ranked University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in Tucson, Arizona. During law school, he worked for the Pima County Attorney’s Office. While working in the prosecutor’s office, he gained valuable experience researching and writing.
