When To Hire A Michigan Bankruptcy Attorney

By Michelle Schmidt


Accumulating unmanageable levels of bad debt takes time. You only need to charge your credit card a few times, get car financing, buy a big house and fail to make your monthly payments. It is usually the lack of financial discipline that forces people into bad debt. However, loss of a job, temporary or permanent disability and change of circumstances can also be blamed for the problem. Fortunately, you can hire a Michigan bankruptcy attorney to help you out when you are unable to meet your debt obligations.

Debtors have access to three bankruptcy chapters. However, the most popular is chapter 7 because anyone can qualify for this chapter, which calls for liquidation of assets. The second most popular option is chapter 13 because individual debtors with reliable income sources can apply to become bankrupt under this option. The other option is chapter 11, which is similar to chapter 13 except for the fact that it is meant for businesses and corporates.

Of all the different forms of bankruptcies, chapter 7 is the most punitive, especially if you have a lot of property. However, all the other options also have serious consequences or shortcomings. Before making a decision, therefore, you need to check all the pros and cons to ensure you make a decision that you will not live to regret.

Chapter 13 is a debt resolution option available to individual debtors with a reliable income source. The debtor is only required to come up with a plan of how they are going to repay their debts with convenient monthly installments. Once the repayment period lapses, the debtor is forgiven of all pending debts.

When filing a chapter 11, the management of a business or organization is required to formulate a repayment plan for their debts. Once the plan has been certified by the court, the business only needs to forward the monthly payments to the trustee. After the prescribed period lapses, all unpaid debts will be written off, thereby freeing the debtor from bad debts.

Consumers should know that student loans, child support and taxes are debts that cannot be forgiven through bankruptcy. These debts must be paid off fully. In fact, child and spousal support can only be amended through a family court while student loans can only be forgiven if the borrower dies. Therefore, you should keep these facts in mind when seeking to become bankrupt.

When looking for an attorney to hire, there is one important thing that you should pay attention to - experience. The years of experience of the attorney as well as the number of cases handled should be checked. Be sure to also check the number of similar cases the lawyer has handled in the recent years.

When you have financial problems, it is important you shop around for the most affordable products and services. Therefore, you should compare quotes provided by different lawyers to identify the most affordable lawyer. However, you should also check the success rate of the lawyer as well as the quality of service they normally offer before making a decision.




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