If you are thinking about filing for bankruptcy talk with a New Jersey Bankruptcy Attorney for free first.

Many times people have problems and think bankruptcy may be their only answer.  Talk with one of our NJ Bankruptcy attornies for Free prior to filing. We have offices in Jersey City and New York.  We can also answer most of your questions over the phone call us at 973-200-1111.  We are here to help you defend your rights and rebuild your credit score.

If you want to try to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy by yourself, the New Jersey Bankruptcy Court has a debtors resource guide.  Before you try, understand that roughly 1 in 3 bankruptcies are successful according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.  This 33% success rate seems very different to the roughly 95% success rate of Chapter 7 bankruptcies that are filed. If you are facing losing your home in a foreclosure auction you need to speak to an attorney prior to filling a chapter 7 or chapter 13.  I am not saying hire the attorney, but at least talk. 

The difference between a 33% Sucess rate for Chapter 13 Bankruptcies and the 95% success rate for Chapter 7 Bankruptcies are easy to explain ….

The difference between a 33% Sucess rate for Chapter 13 Bankruptcies and the 95% success rate for Chapter 7 Bankruptcies are easy to explain when the complexity of a chapter 13 bankruptcy petition and the motivations for filing a chapter 13 compared to filing a chapter 7 are examined.  In some cases filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy can seriously go against what the person filing is trying to accomplish.

Let us look at an example to see how a chapter 7 can hurt someone.  Say two people own 3 homes and they are falling behind on one of their rental property mortgages, but are current on their primary residence and the other property.  If they have equity in their primary home, but little to no equity in their rental properties and they declare a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the homes with equity could be pulled into the bankruptcy to be sold to cover the debts of the other homes.  This is one reason some people put their properties into LLCs to protect their investments in case other investments go sour.

In the above scenario, the people would probably be best off in filing a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.  Now if we think about the 33% success rate, we have to look at what really constitutes a success in bankruptcy.  Many times clients come to our firm because their home is about to be sold at a sheriff sale.  We will then file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy to stop the sheriff sale if they have the funds to make a payment plan to save their property.  The filing of a bankruptcy will stop a sheriff sale in New Jersey. The filing of a Chapter 7  or Chapter 13 bankruptcy will stop a NJ sheriff sale.  Once the bankruptcy is filed we then notify the sheriff department to ensure the property is pulled from the scheduled sheriff sale.

Once the bankruptcy is filed in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, we normally request loss mitigation with the lender to arrange for either repaying the money owed or to arrange time to sell the home.  In some cases, people prefer to pay back all of their debts over a 3 or 5 year period and avoid loss mitigation with their lender. When they complete the payments over the 3 to 5 year period the bankruptcy would be considered a success.  If loss mitigation is arranged with the bank, then many times the bankruptcy is terminated and dismissed.  Even though the person who filed got exactly what they wanted (They saved their home, and are a new payment plan or got the time to sell their home) the bankruptcy would be listed as being dismissed and not being completed successfully.

So sometimes a Chapter 13 failure is actually a success.

Because of this complexity, we offer people a free legal consultation prior to signing them up to file for bankruptcy.  We actually require people to tell us their motivations for filing bankruptcy before we will work with them.  Sometimes people do not need to file bankruptcy, and we want to make sure people understand all of their options prior to filing.  Sometimes the solution is obvious and it is a very short conversation.  Like I have $200,000 in medical debt and only make $50,000 a year and own no property.  In this case filing for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy seems pretty obvious.

We will only recommend options for you that work for you.  If you need time, we can get you more time to fight to save your home. If you need to get out from under credit cards you can no longer afford to pay we can help.  If you have suffered a life-altering accident and can no longer pay your student loans, you may even be able to get them discharged in bankruptcy.

If you are going through hard times, it is important to speak with an attorney who can help you understand your options during this critical time. Contact us today, and we will go over all of your options.  Contact us at (844) 5 – DEFENSE – (973) 834-8588 or email us at INFO@FocusedLaw.com.

If you are looking to take a credit counseling course prior to bankruptcy, we recommend to our clients to use Urgent Credit Counseling. As part of the fees we charge, we include these two courses as part of retainer we charge.

For the second course we ask them to use SolidStart: