When you are thinking about filing a bankruptcy, consumers have two choices. To file a chapter 7 bankruptcy or a chapter 13 bankruptcy. There are other types of bankruptcies that you might hear about in the news, such as the bankruptcies Donald Trump has filed. Trump filed bankruptcy on his businesses and not on his personal debt. He filed a chapter 11 bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that is done to deal with business debt. For this, we will stick to discussing chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy. 

One of the most common questions that potential clients ask their Bankruptcy Attorney when filing is what is the effect that bankruptcy has on continuing home and car ownership. It's understandable that people with debt problems are worried about retaining the place where they live and retaining the car or truck they drive. My typical response is to assure them. As long as you continue to make any loan payments associated with your home and/or your vehicles, you should be able to keep your home and your car. Now this is a good, sound, general statement. And it's true; but to be well informed clients need to know more about theinterplay between ownership of assets and bankruptcy.

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.

I wrote in an earlier blog, Death, Taxes & Maple Grove MN Bankruptcy, that under certain circumstances, an individual who has tax liabilities can sometimes have these tax liabilities discharged in a bankruptcy case. I noted, though, that discharge is available only in very specific circumstances: the tax owed must be income tax, the tax liability must be “old” and returns must have been filed in a timely fashion. While some people who have tax problems meet these criteria, most of my clients do not. So the tax problem that they have is not going to disappear simply by filing a bankruptcy case. So what can we do about tax liability that isn’t discharged in a bankruptcy case?

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” And death and taxes can add layers of complications to debt problems - and create issues for a person who is thinking about filing a bankruptcy case. Let’s take a closer look at the only two certainties in life.

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. 

If you’re an individual in Minnesota, then technically you don’t need an attorney to file bankruptcy. The constitution of the United States allows anyone to file bankruptcy on their own. This is also known as a “pro se” filing. However, you have to file several forms and schedules with the bankruptcy court so if you choose this route, you need to be very, very careful. The consequences of filing improperly are severe. You could be taking a chance at losing your car, your house or your retirement account. You have to know what you’re doing and that’s why hiring your Maple Grove Bankruptcy Attorneys at Kain & Scott is desirable.

Do i really need my Maple Grove MN Bankruptcy Attorneys? As someone who used to work with low income clients at a non-profit, I came across this question a lot. With the rise of "do it yourself legal”, online more and more people think about this question when they are looking to get divorced, write a will and even file bankruptcy. When someone chooses to go forward without hiring an attorney, they are called “pro se.” However, bankruptcy is different from other areas of law in a lot of respects, it has its own court system and its own set of laws. This makes even attorneys that practice in other areas of law leery of stepping foot into bankruptcy court. 

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.

Everybody asks our Bankruptcy Attorneys in Eden Prairie MN what they get to keep and what they have to lose after they file bankruptcy. However 98% of all bankruptcies that are filed are called no-asset cases, meaning that you will get to keep everything that you own. This is because most everything these days is exempt by an attachment from a creditor- contrary to back in the mid to early 1800’s before bankruptcy started. Prior to the formation of bankruptcy in the 1870’s if you owed someone a lot of money they would take you to court, get a writ of attachment, come to your home in Eden Prairie and literally take everything you own. The problem with this is that those people who lost everything would become a burden on the state; the government would have to support them. Well the government didn’t want to do that anymore so they created a list of things that are exempt from attachment. Meaning the creditors can’t get them or have them liquidated to pay your debt. We still have this list today.

The truth is that Bankruptcy is a negative credit event. However, it’s not life threatening and there are ways to immediately start rebuilding your credit after you file with your Roseville Bankruptcy Attorneys. Especially after filing a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, also known as the “Fresh Start Bankruptcy”, allows you to press the re-set button and get all of your unsecured credit card, medical, department store card and some personal loan debt discharged in only four months! Now a lot of people assume that their life is over at this point, at least financially, but that’s not the case. There are a lot things that you can do to start rebuilding your credit to start getting those larger loans and mortgages again.

The Bankruptcy Attorneys in Maple Grove, MN and I spend our workdays meeting with people who are facing significant debt problems. The problems have reached the point where the people I meet with can’t handle their debt. They are in default, in foreclosure, in suit, in garnishment, in levy. They are in trouble. My clients come to me with a range of emotions. But almost all of them share one emotion: they are embarrassed to be here in a difficult financial situation. The stress of the debt they have is part of the feeling they have. But there’s more to this bad feeling than that.