The golden years- a period of relaxation, plenty of money, lots of travel and the freedom to play golf and fish everyday right? For many of our Minnesota seniors, the retirement years don’t look anything like this. In fact, for many seniors there is nothing golden about chronic pain, no money, lots’ of debt, and with that the freedom to do very little.

Bankruptcy can be quite the complicated process and especially if you don't know what you are doing. But it doesn't have to be that way! At Kain & Scott we have several MN Bankruptcy Lawyers with years of experience here to help you with the mounds of worksheets, prepare you for the 341 meeting and to file your case with the court. Plus, they make the Bankruptcy Process quick, easy and will guarantee that everything has been done right so your debts get discharged.

If your case gets thrown out your probably not going to be very happy and you'll be back in the exact same boat that you're in now. That's why getting help from Kain & Scott will make a world of a difference! But where can you find one of our MN Bankruptcy Lawyers? And how do you get one of them? Here's how to get in touch with a Kain & Scott Bankruptcy Lawyer today, to help get you started on the road to a debt free life again! 

One of the major reasons to think about a bankruptcy is medical debt. When I was young, my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad worked in a factory. Trust me, my dad never made a lot of money and probably retired making less than $10.00 an hour. In a family of 9 children you would think that a family of 11 people would cost you a fortune in health insurance. But growing up in the back waters of the Mississippi River in the 70's and 80's health insurance was not the fortune it is now. I also don’t recall my parents ever worried about medical bills. Heck, I am not even sure I even remember hearing the words “co-pay” and “deductible.”

Let’s face it, not every client you meet with has 10k to put down toward legal fees. Some clients require the use of a payment plan to pay attorney fees incurred in a divorce. But, what happens if your client files a bankruptcy during or after the divorce, and meanwhile, the client has incurred a hefty bill for your services?

When you file bankruptcy, lawyers will tell you that the automatic stay goes into effect on the day you file a bankruptcy. But what is the automatic stay? Our Bankruptcy Attorneys in Minneapolis like to think of the automatic stay as a shield that goes up between you and all of your creditors. The automatic stay is a law built into the bankruptcy code to protect you from the actions of your creditors. It is a very powerful law. It protects you from creditors: collection calls or billing, starting or continuing lawsuits, garnishing wages or levying bank accounts, repossessions of vehicles and foreclosures of homes.

Are you contemplating filing a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in Minneapolis? If so, then you want to know how much it costs. Let’s face it moneys tight and your debt is deep. After all you wouldn’t be even considering it if it wasn’t, right? Here’s a list of fees that you will encounter:

Imagine a world in which creditors could collect from debtors at will and without rules. It would be chaos, literally. Hypothetically speaking, if I know Pete owes me 10k and I know that Pete’s business is teetering on the brink of financial ruin, and there are no rules, what am I going to do? I tell you what I am going to do. I am going to secretly find out what assets Pete owns and then I am going to quickly assert control over those assets so I can get paid my 10k plus costs. I want to do this before any of Pete’s other creditors get wind of Pete’s financial condition and take his assets- before I can get paid. 

Oh the humility of being alive. Some of us go through life and never receive a DWI. Some of us should have received a 100 DWI’s and never receive one. Some of us never incur overwhelming debt, and yet, some of us will. Have you ever had a brain tumor? Me neither and yet 1000's of Minnesotans every year have them. Much of the time, life events’ are out of your control- seriously, they are. No one dreams of having a brain tumor or incurring overwhelming debt. This is not a place most of want to be. Yet, each year, over 10,000 good Minnesotans file bankruptcy. Why? The reasons are varied but most bankruptcies fall into one of 5 categories.

If you were recently involved in a car, truck, or motorcycle accident, you might be wondering whether you should file bankruptcy.  That is a complicated question that involves the intersection between two legal practice areas -- auto accident law, and bankruptcy law.  The answer depends on a number of factors.

At first a lot of people want to try and figure out how to file a bankruptcy themselves. However, after getting started they find that it is a lot more complicated and difficult than they had anticipated. Just like anything: if you don’t know what you’re doing it’s not going to go as smooth as it would with the use of a professional. The bankruptcy petition is extremely long, you need to attend a 341 meeting, possibly negotiate payments with a trustee and take credit counseling courses. Besides, making a mistake could potentially jeopardize your assets and financial future. That is why even though it might sound like a good idea at first, most people decide to hire an experienced Bankruptcy Attorney to help them through the process and ensure the best possible outcome. In the end they realize it’s worth the money and a much better deal than losing assets or paying the debt that an experienced lawyer will know how to get you discharged.

As a society, we value marriage. Culturally speaking, there is probably no more important institution than the institution of marriage. I am also happy to see this institution authorized for all members of society not just certain segments of society. But did you know that the one the single most important symbols of marriage, the wedding ring, could be seized to pay ones debts in Minnesota? Crazy but true.

Have you ever heard the expression, “bad things happen to good people?” No where in the law is this more true than in the bankruptcy world. Trust me when I tell you, your clients don’t come to you with overwhelming debt dreaming that would be the position they would find themselves in one day. Nobody grows up thinking some day I would like to find myself divorced, with 3 DWI’s and sure let’s toss in overwhelming debt too.

Roseville MN Bankruptcy and MN Divorce Law find themselves intersecting all the time. It’s almost as if these two areas of law go hand and hand. Debt causes marital strife which leads to divorce. Divorce causes a loss of income to both parties, separate households and therefore separate expenses, and typically debt as a result of the investment in getting the divorce itself; lawyers, custody studies, child support, alimony, and many other expenses associated with getting a divorce. In a lot of cases this all leads to bankruptcy eventually. 

A common question your Eden Prairie MN Bankruptcy Law Firm is asked all the time is do I have to have a minimum amount of debt in order to qualify to file a bankruptcy in Minnesota? The phrase it’s all relative is quite appropriate in answering this question. To a millionaire, 10k is pocket change. To a person making $8.00 per hour, 10k might as well be a million dollars. If I had to guess what the average size of a person’s debt is who comes in to see us a bout possibly filing a bankruptcy case, I would guess it averages roughly $20,000.00. That doesn’t seem like a lot of money if you are making 100k per year but again consider what 20k worth of debt looks like if you pay check every two weeks is only $512.00!?

Continuing on with our theme of the week- the top 5, next we tackle the top 5 questions your Roseville MN Bankruptcy Law Firm is asked. We do this for those of you who would like to know what it would be like to be a bankruptcy client of ours and what questions are commonly asked by our bankruptcy clients. I know that for me, you cannot give me too much information. I take in information like someone is giving me water through a fire hose! At Kain & Scott in Roseville, MN there is no dumb question- at all. We welcome all questions and would be happy to answer them again too! We recognize that this a foreign process to our guests and we want to take the time to answer all questions to your satisfaction. So, without further ado, here are the five most commonly asked questions by our current clients at Kain & Scott.