Fill In Your Debt but Don’t Enter Foreclosure

Posted in Foreclosures, October 24th, 2008 |

The advice is to fill in your debt but not to enter foreclosure. Are you deep in debt? Are there a lot of highly overdue credit card bills, medical bills and mortgage payments to prevent your house from going into foreclosure? Most importantly, are collection companies harassing you? Then the perfect solution for you is to seek counseling from a non profit credit counseling service. If you agree to their budget plan, they give you the required contacts for creditors. This just helps you gain more time to pay all your bills and prevent foreclosure. But of course, you must be careful so as to not fall into the trap of one of the umpteen for-profit scammers. Remember to keep an eye out for any organization affiliated to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling .
However don’t let your hopes rise too high. Travis Plunkett with the Consumer Federation of America, says, “Counseling isn’t for everyone.” Plunkett goes on to say that even though a credit counseling organization “can provide some breathing room” by negotiating reduced payments with creditors, “if you’re really in serious financial trouble, they can’t provide enough breathing room to help.”
Plunkett and Gerri Detweiler have authoured numerous books on consumer credit. They feel that filing for bankruptcy is your only alternative if your financial condition is in an especially bad state. If you think the only option left for you is to file for bankruptcy, then you should meet with a bankruptcy lawyer as soon as possible.

Attorney Stephen Elias provides the consolation that when your bankruptcy filing is public record, and it remains on your credit history for half a decade, it is not as bad as you might think. The above is most applicable when most of your debt is not secured. This means that most of your debt is not supported by some definite property (for example, a car or real estate) that can be foreclosed. Elias goes on to show that if you have already not paid several payments, “your credit is in the tank, anyway, and that stays on your record for seven years.”
Stephen Elias has been the author for many file-your-own-bankruptcy books. He feels that this is a really good method. He says, “First you have to file your papers. Thirty days later you go to a creditors meeting and under oath swear that your paperwork is correct. A minute later you walk out.” It’s as simple as that.