Hiring A Competent Michigan Bankruptcy Attorney

By Michelle Schmidt


Accumulating unmanageable levels of bad debt takes time. You only need to charge your credit card a few times, get car financing, buy a big house and fail to make your monthly payments. It is usually the lack of financial discipline that forces people into bad debt. However, loss of a job, temporary or permanent disability and change of circumstances can also be blamed for the problem. Fortunately, you can hire a Michigan bankruptcy attorney to help you out when you are unable to meet your debt obligations.

There are three bankruptcy chapters available to debtors. The first is chapter 7, which provides for liquidation of assets to pay off debts. This option is available to both individual and corporate debtors. Other chapters include; chapter 11, which provides businesses and other organizations with debt restructuring. Chapter 13, provides individual consumers with debt restructuring.

All the different types of bankruptcies have pros and cons that consumers should be familiar with before they apply to become bankrupt. The ideal lawyer is able to advice clients properly on the reasons for as well as the reasons against becoming bankrupt. This information will enable the consumer to make a well-informed decision.

Chapter 13 is a debt resolution option available to individual debtors with a reliable income source. The debtor is only required to come up with a plan of how they are going to repay their debts with convenient monthly installments. Once the repayment period lapses, the debtor is forgiven of all pending debts.

When filing a chapter 11, the management of a business or organization is required to formulate a repayment plan for their debts. Once the plan has been certified by the court, the business only needs to forward the monthly payments to the trustee. After the prescribed period lapses, all unpaid debts will be written off, thereby freeing the debtor from bad debts.

Consumers should know that student loans, child support and taxes are debts that cannot be forgiven through bankruptcy. These debts must be paid off fully. In fact, child and spousal support can only be amended through a family court while student loans can only be forgiven if the borrower dies. Therefore, you should keep these facts in mind when seeking to become bankrupt.

When looking for an attorney to hire, there is one important thing that you should pay attention to - experience. The years of experience of the attorney as well as the number of cases handled should be checked. Be sure to also check the number of similar cases the lawyer has handled in the recent years.

Since you are already in financial problems, you should not hire a lawyer whose services you cannot afford. For this reason, you should take your time to obtain a quote from a number of lawyers and pick the most affordable one. However, you should not compromise on quality just because you want cheap legal services.




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