Throughout the United States, bankruptcy laws are made the same by the federal government and are taken care of by the US Bankruptcy Courts. Yearly, over one million people file for bankruptcy. This figure consists of individuals who file chapters 13 and 7. Individuals also may qualify for chapter 12 if they are an angler or a farmer and it is a family owned business.
When you file for bankruptcy and use a chapter 7, you have to submit all your assets to the court and an assigns a trustee to liquidate all items to produce money to pay creditors. There are some things that are protected by law, these items are called exemptions. With chapter 7, almost all of the debt, but a small amount is considered paid. Support and alimony, student loans are not included in this bankruptcy chapter.
You can file for bankruptcy every seven years and it costs about three hundred dollars for the filing fee. A chapter 13 on the other hand reduces a debt but does not cancel it out as a chapter 7 can do. With the chapter 13, you make a repayment plan with the courts and creditors with a trustee who makes the payments monthly after you give them the money. They divide the money up and distribute to the creditors. With a chapter 13, you keep everything that you would have loss doing a chapter 7 bankruptcy. These two types of personal bankruptcy help many people become debt free.
If you plan to file chapter 13, your debt has to be less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for unsecured debt and seven hundred and fifty thousand for secured debts. Secured debts are debts that have property as collateral and unsecured debts would be credit cards and things like medical bills.
When you file a chapter 13 your credit does not receive the severe impact that chapter 7 does because you are paying the debt only slower and a chapter 7 you do not pay the debt. If you file a chapter 7, it will take many years to obtain credit where as a chapter 13 might only take you two years. If you do obtain credit, plan to pay a high interest rate until your credit score improves.
If you file for bankruptcy, you need to consider the ratifications your actions will have when you finally decide to receive some type of credit, such as a credit card or a loan. If you can file a chapter 13, you would be better off than filing a chapter 7, which shows creditors you do not pay your debts.
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