So your life is upside down and in financial turmoil. You can’t afford to satisfy your debts anymore and creditors are calling screaming at you for payments. You feel guilty, stressed out and depressed but at the same time you’re asking yourself, “What in the world am I supposed to do?” After realizing that doing nothing isn’t going to make things better and debt consolidation is a waste of time you come to the conclusion that filing bankruptcy is the best and/or only solution for you. Now you need a MN Bankruptcy Lawyer... So what’s next?

How many of us lawyers meet with clients and yet miss issues the client could pursue to their benefit? I suspect the answer is a lot of us. Don’t be too hard on yourself since it’s impossible to know everything right? Most of us limit our areas of practice to a few and focus on those areas. When clients ask our MN Bankruptcy Lawyers and I about other areas of law we get jittery and tell them that we don’t practice in that area and they should see a lawyer who specializes in it. At Kain & Scott every Lawyer has a referral directory that we use to refer clients to any other area of law besides consumer bankruptcy work. Minnesota Bankruptcy work is all we do.

There comes a point when your debt is so deep that it feels like you just can’t stay above water anymore and bankruptcy might be the only way to stay afloat. However, accepting that you might need to File Bankruptcy for relief is only the first step. Once you’re ready to take advantage of the many benefits Bankruptcy has to offer, next it’ll be in your best interest to take some time to learn the basics of Bankruptcy, it's process and how to file. The process is fairly simple but just like any other legal process it’s very important that your case is handled properly. Here’s how to File Bankruptcy in Minnesota.

The most important aspect of filing bankruptcy is your exemptions. Exemptions are the laws that protect your property from being seized by the court and liquidated to pay your creditors. Having your MN Bankruptcy Lawyer understand what property you own and the laws in place to protect it is critical. If you don’t disclose your property and its value correctly, then your lawyer will not be able to analyze your case properly, and it could have negative consequences such as losing property or having to pay into the court to keep property.

Payday loans have been in the news over the last week and prevalent in conversation among the MN Bankruptcy Attorneys at Kain & Scott. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has come out with a proposal to target payday loan lenders that trap consumers in long term debt. Payday loans are short term, high interest loans usually for less than $500 dollars that are paid back with your next paycheck. As internet payday lending has expanded so have the interest rates and fees. I often work with clients who have gotten into the cycle of payday lending.

For most of the clients I meet at my Minneapolis Bankruptcy Law Firm, the most important question they have, after we finish analyzing their financial circumstances is whether it is advisable to file a bankruptcy case. That’s the primary question, and in most cases, the only one. But for some clients there are additional questions - should I wait to file a case, or should I file right away. And for a few clients, the question is whether they should file a case in Minneapolis, Minnesota, or some other state. Let’s take a look at the factors that enter into decision-making about whether to file, when to file and where to file.

You might not recognize Kain & Scott as the leading Bankruptcy Lawyer in MN or a Law Firm that has been practicing for over 40 years. You’re also likely to have found us on Online. And if you’ve been searching the internet for a while now researching Bankruptcy Lawyers MN you might have seen us on several different websites. The Kain & Scott brand name has been well established in MN since 1972. We have helped thousands of Minnesotan debtors get their lives back. In a recent statement by one of our clients Sonja from Minneapolis, she said, “These lawyers are amazing! They definitely know what they are doing!” But Sonja isn’t our only happy client ecstatic about getting her life back! Thousands of Minnesotan’s call us for help relieving their debt problems every year and leave us positive reviews just like her. Here’s why:

In my last blog, Can I File Bankruptcy In MN And Keep My House Or Car, I discussed the social cost of debt - that is, what happens to our society as a whole when individuals find themselves in a financial position in which they cannot manage the debt they have incurred. I discussed the approaches people take when debt has gotten out of control. I discussed in detail the approach of essentially doing nothing to take the initiative to resolve the debt problem, and the cost to the individual who takes this approach and to society as a whole. At the end of the blog, I started to discuss the social cost of taking the most common approach to resolving difficult debt issues: increasing income and decreasing expenses to allow a more significant pay-down of debt out of a person’s monthly budget. 

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?

I often meet with people who are married and they are unsure if they can file a bankruptcy individually or if they must file a bankruptcy with their spouse. When you are married you have a choice. You can file individually or you can file jointly. Your choice will depend on your specific situation. The first thing your and your Minneapolis Bankruptcy Attorney will want to look at is you and your spouse’s credit report to see if you are both jointly liable on the debt.

In my last blog I wrote about the choices many clients have to face: whether filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy case is best for them. I discussed that there tends to be “chapter 7 income” and “chapter 13 income” and “chapter 7 debt” and “chapter 13 debt.” Now I would like to discuss the last of the three factors that should be considered in making the decision between chapter 7 and chapter 13 - what kind of assets does the client own, for just as there are income and debt distinctions to make, there are also “chapter 7 assets” and “chapter 13 assets.”

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.