Although we concentrate primarily in bankruptcy law, we also provide most other legal services including divorce and family law, personal injury, automobile accident cases, wills, trusts and estates, powers of attorney, health care proxy, living wills, preparation of deeds and homesteads, criminal matters, civil matters, small claims, business law, and the general practice of law. If you need legal services that we are not able to provide, we will gladly refer you to an attorney who can help you.
Child Support
Most creditors cannot garnish your wages without first suing you in court and getting a money judgment. There are a few exceptions, for example, for student loans, taxes, and child support. But in most cases, including credit card balances, the creditor must file a lawsuit and win.
Child Custody and Visitation
However, the stay won’t stop criminal actions, child custody, or visitation proceedings, and, depending on your state law, certain eviction proceedings. (Learn more in How Bankruptcy Stops Your Creditors: The Automatic Stay.)
Spousal Support
4. More debts can be discharged in a chapter 13 bankruptcy as opposed to a chapter 7 bankruptcy such as alimony and divorce payments and money owed for malicious and willful acts.
Bankruptcy: not all debts discharged. The debts discharged vary under each chapter of the Bankruptcy Code. Section 523(a) of the Code specifically excepts various categories of debts from the discharge granted to individual debtors. Therefore, the debtor must still repay those debts after bankruptcy. Congress has determined that these types of debts are not dischargeable. Public policy reasons do not allow the discharge of certain debts. Debts incurred for drunk driving injuries to another is one example.
Fraud
The amounts are valid for three years as of April 1, 2019. (11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(C)(i)(l).) Learn why it’s not a good idea to use credit cards before filing for bankruptcy and about other types of bankruptcy fraud.
Theft
Identity Theft
You’re being harassed by debt collectors even though you do not owe the debt. Creditors do make mistakes and they probably do so much more often than you think. If you believe that a bill was sent to you by mistake, you should definitely fight it. Perhaps you have already made payment but it was not credited to your account, or maybe you’re the victim of identity theft, which is becoming more and more common or it is possible that the creditor simply has the wrong person with the same or similar name.
Restraining Order
Yes, when you file bankruptcy the Federal Law imposes an "automatic stay" which is similar to a restraining order against your creditors and immediately stops your creditors from starting or continuing any legal action to collect debts from you. This includes court judgments, lawsuits, foreclosures, automobile repossessions and wage attachments against you.
Generally speaking, the exceptions to discharge apply automatically if the language prescribed by section 523(a) applies. The most common types of nondischargeable debts are certain types of tax claims, debts not set forth by the debtor on the lists and schedules the debtor must file with the court, debts for spousal or child support or alimony, debts for willful and malicious injuries to person or property, debts to governmental units for fines and penalties, debts for most government funded or guaranteed educational loans or benefit overpayments, debts for personal injury caused by the debtor’s operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, debts owed to certain tax-advantaged retirement plans, and debts for certain condominium or cooperative housing fees.
Most people incur student loan debt with the best of intentions and highest hopes however, if you can not find work in your field or do not find the job or income level that you had hoped for, repayment of those student loans may become difficult or maybe impossible when they become due. The collection calls and wage garnishments start making it more difficult for you to concentrate on finding your first job in your field or focusing on advancing yourself in your present career. It can quickly put you in a rut where you feel trapped and hopeless. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy may be an option when it comes to managing student loan debts.
Foreclosure
The next step would be to meet with you for a free bankruptcy attorney consultation. At this time we will try to determine your goals in filing for bankruptcy, whether it is simply to get out from under oppressive debt or to save your home from foreclosure or a combination of both. Basically, we, as an objective bankruptcy lawyer, want to find out how to best get you a fresh, new start financially in life.
Debt Collection
Bill collectors can be very persistent while trying to collect money, as many may know. However, people may not know that The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act extends substantial protection to people from collectors by making certain practices illegal in Massachusetts and the rest of the United States. Learn what bill collectors can and cannot do.