Filing for bankruptcy with Seattle bankruptcy lawyers is never an easy decision to come to.  In fact, most people can struggle with the idea of whether to file for bankruptcy for months, if not years.  The truth is, that even if you are not sure if bankruptcy is the right answer for you, you should at least talk to somebody before making decisions which could negatively impact you in the long term.  Recently I have met people who fall into the category of holding on for too long.  For these people, they have been out of work for several years due to medical disability and were not capable of working at any point in the foreseeable future.  These debtors, however did amass a significant amount of debt and like most reasonable people they wanted to pay the debt back.  In order to accomplish their goal, they took out funds from their retirement account in order to stay afloat.  If they had consulted with a debt relief attorney, they would have learned that their retirement accounts would be fully protected in most cases if they were to file for bankruptcy.  So don’t make the same mistake and blow your retirement that you need to live on, on paying back medical and credit card debt that could be discharged.

Bankruptcy attorneys in Seattle can advise you as to what your best options are moving forward in order to achieve the best results for you.  A chapter 7 bankruptcy will wipe out all of you unsecured debts including medical and credit card debt in most cases as long as the debtor is below the median income for their state and family size.  If a debtor does not qualify for a chapter 7 bankruptcy, they may want to consider a chapter 13 bankruptcy which will allow a debtor to make payments that are reasonable and based on their disposable income available.

While Facebook is in the news due to the rise of employers demanding Facebook passwords to view Facebook accounts, your social media profile work against your financial goals as well. Your social media profile can mess up your bankruptcy as well as your marriage. Let’s look at how the social media sphere intersects with the financial sphere and how they intersect. Debt collectors are trolling social media websites to find contact information for debtors. You may have moved in with Mom without updating your mailing address or forwarding mail to a Post Office box, but debt collectors can find you through your social media profile. Updates online with a new phone number can quickly lead to new contacts from debt collectors as well.

Did you get a new job? It is common to immediately post this as an update to the world. Are you discussing a second job with your friends? Did you get a raise? Your good news can become bankruptcy fraud if you do not update your bankruptcy petition to reflect your new household income.What does someone see when they look at pictures on your social media profile? Are you fishing on “your” boat? Are you staying at “your” vacation house? Creditors can rightfully ask whose property it is and whether you own even a part of it that can then become liable for your debts.Do your profile updates reflect the activities of someone who is on a tight repayment plan or who lost everything? Are you filing for bankruptcy while listing exotic trips in your recent activities? Are you bragging about buying a new car while stating that you cannot make your house payment? This information can be used to accuse you of bankruptcy fraud, running up debts on frivolous things prior to declaring bankruptcy.

Are you a generous giver? In most circumstances, this is a good thing. However, if you are going through bankruptcy, you shouldn’t have anything to give away without the court’s permission. For example, personal property such as wedding rings below a specific value can be kept in bankruptcy. Yet a mother who gives a daughter an heirloom wedding ring and brags about its significant value may have given creditors the means to question its valuation from the bankruptcy and then seize it. If you are giving fishing gear to your brother or furniture to your child going off to school, you may be seen as shielding assets from the bankruptcy. Speak with a Hawaii bankruptcy attorney if faced with allegations of hiding assets or creditors challenging your bankruptcy petition.Has your family status changed and you neglected to inform the courts?

Repayment plans are based on both personal incomes and family size. If your child has finished school and joined the military, the court will assume that you now have more money available each month to pay back your bills. Hiding this information can be interpreted as bankruptcy fraud. Conversely, having had a new baby and have not amended your bankruptcy petition, you are living on a tighter budget than necessary and should speak with a Honolulu bankruptcy lawyer to amend the petition and adjust the payment plan.

When a customer is seeking a pay advance, many financial institutions have certain requirements on the types of information that they require for customer identification purposes. Moreover, they have certain requirements on the procedures they use to verify that potential customers are not prohibited from obtaining credit in the United States. Obtaining pay advance product request data is followed, at some point, by processes to authenticate identity and verify the ability of the lender to extend credit to the applicant(s).

The ability to classify a pay advance request and differentiate between and within product groups is an important piece of compliance strategy. By utilizing the attributes comprising a product request, the values of these attributes, and the interaction(s) of these attributes with each other, many pay advance lenders will dynamically classify product requests.

The need to provide applicant(s) disclosures is the single largest portion of pay advance regulatory compliance support, serving to educate the applicant(s), while simultaneously attempting to prevent the lender from misleading, misrepresenting, and otherwise taking advantage of the applicant(s) in question.

Generation of disclosures for pay advance type products can occur at any number of points (oftentimes multiple points) in the life of a pay advance request. In certain instances, federal regulations provide flexibility as to the time of disclosure generation. This leeway results in the need for all pay advance lenders to have audit/update functionality for all disclosures. This functionality applies to all of the disclosures given during the life of the pay advance and may include:

• the text of the disclosure
• a time-stamp including the date of disclosure generation
• the channel via which the disclosure was provided (e.g. Email address)
• the need for acknowledgement (if so, was the disclosure acknowledged)
• the ability to comment to the product request when necessary
• the ability to customize generic disclosures (e.g., adding lenders name, phone number, etc.)
• the ability to order disclosures, where relevant.

Certain pay advance disclosures are required regardless of the product request/applicant combination (e.g., credit report authorization and release) while others are a function of the particular product request/applicant(s) mix. Certain pay advance disclosures will be acknowledged as a function of the channel via which the product request arrived. Some combination of the aforementioned disclosures may be given and/or acknowledged at the time the customer submits the request for a pay advance.

These disclosures can be made all at once, or piecemeal across multiple channels, where applicable. Failure of the customer to acknowledge the relevant disclosures will result in pay advance request eventual termination. Lenders typically embed product request disclosures within the UI and they then “appear” based on the values of various data attributes, and the interaction of the attributes.

Several closing disclosures are required based on the product request and credit policies of the financial institution. At a minimum, the federal truth in lending statement must be provided that notes the terms and conditions under which interest charges will be applied to borrower accounts so that the pay advance customer is very clear about the components of the deal including the APR, Finance Charge, Amount Financed, and Total of Payments.

Business owners will all agree that from time to time their businesses will need a bit of financing and it is therefore very important for them to maintain good credit. If for whatever reason they should fall behind in repaying their debts, it can cause their credit rating to go down and this can have a negative effect when it comes to getting a business loan in the future. If this happens they will have to resort to getting a business loan with bad credit from a bank or other lending institution.

Such loans are considered as high risk by the lenders and as a result they put measures in place to recover any losses in case your business does not repay the loan. They require that you present some type of collateral to be used as security or that you get another business owner who has good credit to cosign the loan.

It must be noted however, that the interest rates charged by these lenders when you have bad credit, is generally higher than the rates charged if you were getting an ordinary business loan with good credit. The best way to go about getting a loan is to find lenders who actually offer this type of loan and make sure that your business has all of the conditions that they ask for. As long as you have chosen your lender, you can submit your application and if possible, negotiate for the best terms.

Once you have worked out the terms and your payment plan, it is very important that you keep up with the payments on a regular basis. This will be very helpful for your business because it gets a chance to improve its credit score which prove to be very beneficial when trying to obtain loans in the future.

There are several reasons why a debtor may need to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy with Seattle bankruptcy lawyers, however often times a chapter 13 may not be the best fit throughout the full term of the plan.  A chapter 13 bankruptcy is generally used for below median debtors who are looking to strip a second mortgage or make up payments on a home as well as debtors who have an above median income.  Chapter 13 plans generally last for 3 years for a below median debtor and 5 years for an above median debtor.  If one thing is certain, it’s that things change.  A chapter 13 plan when filed is based on a debtors last 6 months of income prior to the original filing date.  This means that if a debtor loses a job or has a significant change in income action needs to be taken.

Seattle bankruptcy attorneys will look at your case as a whole to determine what action would be best.  For instance if you have suffered a decrease in income, yet are still above the median, then a chapter 13 modification of probably the most appropriate action.  If however you lose your job and become a below median debtor over a 6 month period, the you may seek to convert your case to a chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Another option would be to dismiss your chapter 13 case and file a chapter 7 bankruptcy once your income is below the median income. Refiling a new case can cause debtors to pay a new filing few which is more than the conversion fee that must be paid.  If debtors convert cases they will need to attend another meeting of creditors and a new trustee is assigned to their case.  Once those steps are completed, the debtors will most likely be able to receive a discharge of all of their unsecured debts.