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Risks of Filing for Bankruptcy Without a Bankruptcy Attorney in Waseca, MN

If you’re struggling to meet loan payments and bills alongside daily living expenses, bankruptcy is an option for individuals, business owners, and corporations alike. Designed to liquidate assets, discharge debts, reorganize expenses, and generally give the filer a fresh start while maintaining the fair treatment of creditors, bankruptcy in the U.S. is a process that can fix a lot more than most realize. As American citizens, our freedoms extend to self-representation in all courts of law, including the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts. Utilizing the counsel and support of Behm Law Group, Ltd.’s bankruptcy attorneys in Waseca, MN when filing for bankruptcy, however, can protect you from the potentially costly errors you may make through self-representation.

Representing yourself and filing your own bankruptcy petition is an option, but it can mean you’ll be taking many risks. At the very least, it can be difficult to reach optimal results in your bankruptcy case without the help of a trained professional.

Filing your own bankruptcy petition means you risk case dismissal or court prejudice and forgo the protection of an experienced bankruptcy attorney.

Mistakes When Filing for Bankruptcy:

Mistakes on the required paperwork are the most common reasons a case is dismissed. Gathering the necessary information about household or business income sources, debts, loans, assets, properties, and expenses can be a difficult process. Bankruptcy attorneys have the knowledge, experience, and resources to put together a flawless petition with no room for inaccuracies. Self-representation, on the other hand, offers countless opportunities for small mistakes that may lead to case dismissal. Misrepresentation of finances can appear as fraudulent and can provide a basis for the court to reject your bankruptcy petition.

Protection When Filing for Bankruptcy:

One of the roles of a bankruptcy attorney is to provide legal protection for clients. Business or individual, all filers may be experiencing aggressive collection action from lenders. The automatic stay in a bankruptcy case halts collection action for a period of time, but some creditors may petition the bankruptcy court for the lifting or termination of the automatic stay for certain debts. If approved, those creditors can collect or repossess collateral. A bankruptcy attorney can protect a client from harassment and aggressive actions by creditors, collection agencies, debt collectors, and any other lenders before the automatic stay is lifted.

Above all, a bankruptcy attorney offers expertise, experience, knowledge, and legal protection. Forfeiting your right to attorney protection and guidance may result in a less than successful bankruptcy case.

We’ll take a critical part in creating a positive outcome for your case from beginning to end. Relieve the stress of managing your own bankruptcy case and eliminate risks of failure. Contact Behm Law Group, Ltd. today at (507) 387-7200 for more information about working with an expert bankruptcy attorney in Waseca, MN.

 

 

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Limitations of the Automatic Stay When You File for Bankruptcy in Windom, MN

Whether you file for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy or Chapter 13 debt reorganization bankruptcy, you benefit from the immediate action of the automatic stay as soon as your bankruptcy petition is filed. The automatic stay is a wonderful tool designed to prevent creditors from collecting on debts that may be discharged or restructured during the bankruptcy process. It also prevents collections and blocks harassment from your creditors during the period of your bankruptcy case. If you’re struggling financially, the short-term effects of the automatic stay and the long-term effects of bankruptcy as a whole might be a viable option for recovery. Behm Law Group, Ltd. offers legal advice and assistance when you file for bankruptcy in Windom, MN.

The automatic stay provides a wide range of advantages (link to blog post “The Power of Automatic Stay When You File Bankruptcy in Fairmont, MN”) along with its ability to prevent your creditors from collecting debt payments during the stay period. In addition to the many ways the automatic stay can help you, however, there are some things it cannot do, including:

1. Halting certain lawsuits.

Lawsuits that affect minors (i.e. children of the parties involved) are protected against most financial proceedings, including bankruptcy. For example, the automatic stay cannot stop a lawsuit that involves paternity or child custody tests, nor can it stop a lawsuit that attempts to modify, collect, or confirm child support payments.

2. Halting certain tax requirements.

The automatic stay can’t alter or prevent IRS tax audits or issues regarding tax deficiency. Additionally, the automatic stay cannot prevent the IRS from demanding your tax returns and demanding payment for taxes owed.

3. Halting wage garnishment for pension loan repayment.

If you took out a loan from your retirement pension, the automatic stay doesn’t stop the garnishment of your income (including wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, and any other sources of income) for the repayment of that loan. This is the only condition where the automatic stay is not effective in preventing wage garnishment.

4. Halting criminal sentence proceedings.

If you’re in the process of undergoing criminal proceedings involving debt, or otherwise, the automatic stay is only able to impact the conditions of your sentence that involve debt repayment. The automatic stay does not change the parts of your sentence that involve community service, therapy, jail time, or other requirements.

Despite the many advantages of the automatic stay, these situations remain unchanged during the stay period when you file for bankruptcy. Additionally, if you’ve filed for bankruptcy the previous year, the automatic stay period will end after 30 days, unless you can prove the need for an extension.

If you’re considering filing for bankruptcy in Windom, MN, and want to learn more about how the automatic stay can apply to your situation, contact Behm Law Group, Ltd., at (507) 387-7200 today for more information.

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The Power of Automatic Stay When You File Bankruptcy in Fairmont, MN

Most Americans over 30 have around $150,000 in various debts including mortgages, car loans, credit cards, medical bills, taxes, and other accumulated debts. This debt can often begin to cripple the quality of life for individuals and families who cannot maintain regular debt payments and still meet standards for necessary expenses. If your financial obligations become overwhelming, the advice of a bankruptcy lawyer can set you on the right path to debt relief and a fresh beginning. Behm Law Group, Ltd. offers legal support from start to finish when you file for bankruptcy in Fairmont, MN.

When you declare bankruptcy, the automatic stay is immediately set in motion. The automatic stay prevents your creditors from collecting debt payments, harassing you over missed payments, or filing lawsuits against you. It works, essentially, to prevent your creditors from doing anything to collect their debts.

In many cases, automatic stay has the power to alter your financial situation in several ways. This includes:

  1. Halting garnishment of your wages from all parties until the stay is lifted. This prevents any garnishment from all your sources of income including salaries, wages, pensions, commissions, bonuses, and retirement funds.
  2. Halting an eviction process until the stay is lifted. Your landlord cannot evict you based on failure to pay rent during the period of your automatic stay. If your landlord obtained a court order against you for eviction or wrongful possession before you filed for bankruptcy, however, the automatic stay does not stall the process. Additionally, in the case where you’re in poor favor with your landlord for misuse of property, going against lease terms, endangering other tenants, or selling illegal items on the property, the court will side with your landlord, and the automatic stay will only be in effect for a short time.
  3. Halting a foreclosure until the stay is lifted or bankruptcy discharges your mortgage or establishes a new payment plan. If you are delinquent with your mortgage payments and you plan to keep your house, you could pay those past due mortgage payments back in a chapter 13 plan and cure or bring current your mortgage obligation. If you want to simply surrender your house and discharge your mortgage debt, Chapter 7 will allow you to do that. The mortgage creditor would foreclose on your house and any debt you owe on the house would be discharged.
  4. Halting utility shut-off until the stay is lifted. For at least 20 days from the start of your bankruptcy petition the automatic stay prevents your water, gas, and electricity providers from shutting off your utilities. This period could be extended throughout your bankruptcy case during the winter months.

For more information about the legal assistance Behm Law Group, Ltd. can provide when you file for bankruptcy in Fairmont, MN, contact us at (507) 387-7200 today.

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Debt Punishment of the Past Compared to Today’s Bankruptcy in St. Peter, MN

For as long as the concept of trade has been around, so has the concept of debt. Today, debtors have a wide range of options to recover from financial difficulties. Filing for bankruptcy is one of the most viable options for debt recovery we have as US citizens. Bankruptcy is designed to handle a filer’s debts in a process that provides fair treatment of creditors’ claims and results in a manageable situation for the filer. At Behm Law Group, Ltd., we have seen the system of bankruptcy in St. Peter, MN, prove its worth time and time again with each successful financial recovery our clients make.

We provide legal support with Chapter 7, 12, and 13 bankruptcies for community members and businesses in Mankato, MN, and the surrounding Southern Minnesota area, and we stand by the value of a successful bankruptcy case in helping our clients recover.

While the system of bankruptcy is a great option today, the debtors of the past didn’t have things so easy. In fact, there has been a wide range of harsh punishments for debtors throughout history.

A few of the most notorious punishments for debtors in history include:

  • Debt Slavery Laws: Up until 326 BCE, “debt slavery” in Rome and Greece was a common practice. Because there was no option for bankruptcy, debtors would instead pledge their labor as a security interest on loans. Creditors could take advantage of this security pledge and keep debtors in a slave-like internment until they could repay their debts. Slave bondage could even be passed from parent to child.
  • Death Penalty: Under the reign of Genghis Khan, debtors were given even fewer choices if they could not repay their loans. While they had the option to declare a form of relief akin to bankruptcy, after the third declaration, they were sentenced to death.
  • Medieval Penalties: Colloquially known as the Dark Ages, the medieval times have a reputation for hard conditions and harsh punishments. Debt punishments were no exception and included anything from flogging and branding to execution.
  • Imprisonment: Today, debts are not often associated with prison. Even fraudulent behavior in a bankruptcy case will most likely result in no harsher penalty than the dismissal of that case or the denial of debt relief. In Victorian England, however, failure to pay debts was punished with prison sentences or with exile to the British Empire’s “prison island” of Australia.

Debtors in today’s legal system can rest easy and know that they have many options to settle financial woes through the system of bankruptcy. Whether you qualify for Chapter 7 liquidation or Chapters 12 and 13 reorganization, the process of bankruptcy can turn the tides of unmanageable debt.

Contact Behm Law Group, Ltd. at (507) 387-7200 for expert support and legal counsel from beginning to end when you choose to file for bankruptcy in St. Peter, MN.