Funniest Chapter 13 Ever!

Posted on September 25, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

Chapter 13 Hearing

I was a brand new attorney and following the suggestion of a friend of mine, I attended some chapter 13 bankruptcy hearings in Downtown San Diego. Intent on gaining a greater understanding of the process I made my way to Trustee David Skelton’s offices to watch the hearings for a couple of hours.

The audience was made up of people who had filed bankruptcy, their attorneys, some creditors and attorneys for creditors.  There were probably about 60 to 70 people there that day. I sat about 5 rows back on the right side, aisle seat. Next to me sat a tall man with a congenial smile who was African American and slightly balding.

Typical for the First Half Hour

I sat through at least a half hour or some fairly typical cases. People were paying the arrears on houses or the payments they were behind on their homes, managing car payments and paying off the principal of their credit cards interest free. All the benefits of typical Chapter 13 cases.

Funniest Case I’ve Ever Seen

I can’t remember the debtor’s name anymore, (for the purposes of this story). But he had a gotee and the first thing that struck me was that Trustee Skelton, just said, “Hello, I’m Trustee Skelton, and my attorney will be taking over now,” and he got up and left. Wow, what was happening? Maybe he just had to go relieve himself, I didn’t know, I’d never been to a chapter 13 hearing before.

With this particular debtor, (or person who files a bankruptcy), sitting in font of him, the trustee’s attorney asked a lot of the more usual questions, did the debtor understand the penalty of perjury, did he list everything he owned, did he list all of his debts, did he understand that the penalty for perjury is up to 5 years in prison and or $500,000 in fines, blah blah blah . ..  What?  I had’t heard the Trustee ask those extra perjury questions of anyone else.

Then the attorney moved onto more specific questions such as, how did he choose values for his cars? How did he look up the value of his house?  Whom did he owe the mortgage to?  Had he transferred any money to anyone prior to filing? Had he ever been married to Dagmar Coleridge (name changed)?

Now, the debtor had been sitting there with his chin resting on his thumb and his fingers kind of resting over his chin. He was silent. The room fell silent. During the silence his head dropped slowly until he was looking down at his feet. Then slowly he spoke and said only the word: “No.”

I could not have laughed harder or louder if the man had been Eddie Murphy. All of the audience laughed. After almost falling out of my chair, the tall man next to me said with a big grin, “I’m the other Chapter 13 Trustee and I’d heard this one was going to be good.” And that was my introduction to Trustee Billingslea.

So remember out there, tell the truth, you want your case to be nice and boring.

Don’t Kiss Your Hard Earned Cash Good-bye

Posted on September 25, 2013September 25, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

File Bankruptcy Instead.

Did you know that paying off $60,000 in credit cards at 20% interest in minimum payments will take decades and you’ll pay nearly $200,000 back in payments of nearly $2000 per month?

Did you know that if you paid back the whole $60,000 at 0% interest through a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, you’d pay back about $70,000 at $1,167 per month and be out of debt in 5 years.

With Chapter 13, you might not even have to pay back the whole kit and kaboodle, because it’s based on what you can afford to pay. Of course it also depending on the property you own as well and every case is different.

With Chapter 7, if you qualify, you could have your debt nubbed down to 0% principal and 0% interest. Of course it also depends on the property you own as well and every case is different.

I’m located in Murrieta close to Temecula, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Winchester, Moreno Valley, Riverside, Corona, and Wildomar.

Please SHARE, LIKE, PLUS, TWEET, PIN 
Anything Else You Can Think Of
Call for a FREE Consultation 951-200-3613
(c) 2013 All Rights Reserved

A Chapter 13 You Can Afford?

Posted on September 6, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

Low Down Payment

I can go as low as required by the case plus filing fee.

I set the down payment on a case by case basis. If you’re under the gun and have to get filed and if you’re serious about debt reorganization, then the down payment is negotiable. However in most cases I won’t go lower than $500.

That can give you a powerful leverage that does the opposite of having to start with a huge pool of cash like when you are trying a debt settlement program.

Chapter 13 Attorney’s Fees

Attorney’s fees for Chapter 13 cases range from $3500 to $5000.  It’s what the US Trustee’s Office allows which in the Southern and Central Districts of California. I consider the final total for your Chapter 13 Attorney’s Fees as a fixed cost, therefore I charge what the US Trustee’s Office allows.

Because think about it, if I reduce my fees by $500 that only reduces your monthly payment by $6.67 per month.

If You Need to Stop Foreclosure for a Short Time

If you’re planning on filing a bankruptcy for the sole purpose of delaying a foreclosure so you can do a loan modification or short sale, then maybe you should do a Chapter 7. Chapter 7 straight bankruptcy gives you the benefit of delaying the foreclosure while discharging your debts at the same time and costing significantly less.

My Bankruptcy Law Office is located in Old Town Murrieta, convenient to Temecula, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, Winchester, French Valley, Moreno Valley, Riverside and Palm Desert.

Please SHARE, LIKE, PLUS, TWEET, PIN 
Anything Else You Can Think Of
Call for a FREE Consultation 951-200-3613
(c) 2013 All Rights Reserved

Image credit: ariwasabi / 123RF Stock Photo

10 Reasons Why Chapter 13 is Better than Debt Settlements When You Owe a Lot of Money

Posted on September 3, 2013September 3, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

Chapter 13 vs Debt Settlements; a Re-Match

What is a Debt Settlement?

A Debt Settlement is a non-judicial process whereby you or your representative contact your creditors and ask them to take a settlement.

What is a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy?

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a court process to reorganize your debts over a 3 to 5 year plan of repayment.

In the rest of this post, I will assume that you do owe a lot of money and that you do not qualify for a chapter 7 straight bankruptcy.

Round 1: Chapter 13 Can Also Cut Your Balances

With a chapter 13 you might not even have to pay all your credit cards in full in the first place. You might be able to cut your balances by more than the settlements.  On top of that Chapter 13 gives you up to five years to pay them off too.

If you don’t own a lot of property and if your income is too high to file a chapter 7 but not high enough to pay your debts in full, then in your chapter 13 plan you pay your debts whatever you can afford. Take that Debt Settlements!

 Of course, you’ll have to ask your attorney how much you can reduce your debts with bankruptcy. Know your options because knowledge is power.

Round 2: No Need for Large Up-Front Cash Pool

To do a debt settlement you have to have access to a large amount of cash. Usually, 40% to 50% of the total balances on your credit cards. That’s got to come from somewhere. Often people pull it from savings, their 401k plan, or other retirement plans. Sometimes you have to borrow it from someone else like your parents or grandparents.

In a chapter 13 you set up a payment plan to pay back your credit cards. You don’t have to liquidate your family heirlooms, cars, trucks, jewelry, wedding rings and 401k plan in order to pay your chapter 13 payment plan. You pay it out of your regular earnings.

Round 3: Attorney’s Fees

Attorney’s fees in debt settlements are determined by the number of accounts settled plus the percentage of the amount saved. If the person doing the offers to settle your debts saves you 50% of a $10,000 credit card, they’re going to charge you from 10 to 20% of the $5000 savings. Plus you’re going to pay a flat amount per account up front usually from $100 to $500 per account.

For instance, if he saves you 70% of a $10,000 account, then the savings is $7,000 and 20% of that is $1400. You’re going to pay $3000 on the account, + $1400 in fees, + you paid a down payment. That’s 38% to 45% of the debt. You could have probably gotten that same deal or better yourself to begin with.

In a chapter 13, it’s $4000 to $5000 to handle all of the debts en masse.  So, if you owe a lot of money and have a lot of different accounts to settle, then file a chapter 13.

Round 4: Certainty

In a chapter 13 bankruptcy, you know how much you’re going to pay and for how long.

Debt Settlements can take a long time. You won’t know how long until it’s done. While settling one account here or there, the other accounts might sue you in the mean time too. Uncertainty leads to stress in the home and domestic quarreling.

Round 5: Your Credit Is Toast Either Way

Trading your nest egg of savings away in order to settle your debts for less than full value because you think it will preserve your credit rating is a lie. Don’t believe it.

Round 6: Retirement

If you get to retirement age with a lot less money because you liquidated your retirement savings to pay debts, you’ll kick yourself all the way to the Walmart where you’ll be applying for a door greeter job. Ooohh, Debt Settlements takes a black eye, and the crowd goes wild!

If you borrow against your 401k plan and even if you pay it back, you still lose money. If you borrowed $30,000 and if you pay it back on time at 7% but if you would have earned 10% then you’re going to lose more than $40,000 even if you do pay it back on time. If you end up defaulting on the 401k loan instead of paying it back, you would lose over a Million Dollars.

You realize that your retirement savings is protected in a bankruptcy whether in chapter 13 or chapter 7. You could keep all of your 401k plan’s savings when you file bankruptcy.

Round 7: 401k Loans Cost More Than Chapter 13 Payments

If you “borrow” from your 401k plan in order to pay your credit cards, how much does that cost? If you borrow $30,000 from your 401k plan, what is the 401k loan payment?

ANSWER: Borrowing $30,000 at 7% interest for 60 months at 26 pay periods per year yields a $541 payment per check.  That’s over $1100/month.  60 months later you’ve paid back $66,000. This is the real cost of your 401k loan and it’s ugly.

Depending on how much money you owe, your chapter 13 plan payment may very well be lower.

Round 8: You Borrow From Your 401k then Lose Your Job

You’re screwed to put it mildly. Imagine you’ve settled $60,000 with the $30,000 you’ve borrowed from your 401k plan. You’re out of debt, sort of. Except that you’re paying the $30,000 back. If you’re on an 8 year repayment plan at 7% then your payment will be $355/check based on biweekly pay periods. Then you lose your job.

First you’ve taken a humongous hit on the amount of retirement you thought you’d have, and that’s going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you’re going to be applying at Walmart.

Second, if you had been in a chapter 13 bankruptcy and lost your job, you’d convert to a chapter 7 and discharge the debt. Your retirement savings would still be preserved and you’d be out of debt.  Debts Settlements takes a Right Cross to the Jaw!

Round 9: TAXES

In a chapter 13 bankruptcy, you just pop them into the plan, recent taxes will have to be paid in full, however, while paying those in full, you can also reduce your payments on your credit cards to as little as 0%.  (Depending on your circumstances). Older taxes may be lumped in with the credit cards and given as little as a 0% pay out too.

Debt settlements cannot touch this with a 10 foot pole. Debt Settlements gets a body shot and is going down!

Round 10: Rental Property Mortgage Benefits in Chapter 13

Imagine stripping the 2nd and 3rd mortgages off of your rental properties and at the same time, cutting the 1st mortgage down to the value of the property and rewriting the mortgage. Can your purveyor of Debt Settlements do that?

Chapter 13 gives Debt Settlements a rabbit punch on the way down, but the referee misses it!  Debt Settlements is down!

CALL to set an Appointment for a FREE Consultation 951-200-3613

Why You Should Use Chapter 13 to Consolidate Your Debts When You Have a Higher Income?

Posted on September 2, 2013September 2, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

What if you make a lot of money but have a lot of debt?

Has a process server shown up at your door yet with a summons and complaint? When you have a higher income, this is a serious problem. If your wages get garnished and you make $9000 per month, then 25% of your check after taxes is a couple of car payments. So now the cars are about to be repossessed. How are you going to get to work? You risk losing that job if you let it move forward.

Have you ever thought that if you could just pay your credit cards what you owe them, you’d be able to handle the payments?  If they just didn’t have 12, 15, or 29% interest rates, you’d be able to eventually pay them off in a reasonable time, right?

Debt Consolidation

For many this would be true. Debt consolidation starts to sound like a great idea at that point. They promise to reduce interest rates for each of your credit cards and accounts, and cut your payments in half and when you get there the numbers just don’t work out.

Once the numbers are all added up, they tell you that you’re going to pay only about 25% to 33% less than you’re currently paying. If honest, they’ll also tell you that some of your creditors won’t play along and will just go ahead and sue you and garnish your wages instead. Some creditors will reduce interest rates to 5% but some will reduce interest rates by 5%.  There’s a huge difference.

Of course if they tell you that, then you won’t sign up and won’t pay them any money and then they won’t make any money on your case.  Clearly that’s why I’m writing this post to you, because I’d prefer you signed up and paid me instead to be perfectly honest.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

So, here’s what I can tell you about a chapter 13: Once the chapter 13 payment plan is approved by the Court which is called a confirmation order, none of your creditors are going to opt out and sue you and garnish your wages instead. They can’t.  Basically, you’ve already sued all of them yourself. It’s a pre-emptive strike sort of like suing all of your creditors as a class action lawsuit before they can sue you individually.  So, no lawsuits against you and no wage garnishments or bank levy.

Truly Reorganize Your Debt With Bankruptcy

Additionally, what I usually find is that if you are paying 100% of your credit cards and medical bills and the like, and you’re paying them at 0% interest for only 5 years, then in most cases you cut your payments in half, give or take a few percent. It’s what the debt consolidators promised to reduce your payments to, but couldn’t. The reason it works out though is that the bankruptcy court forces the creditors to take it.  The other reason it works out is that your attorney and your bankruptcy trustee are charging you far less than the interest you would have to pay if you went to a debt consolidation.  Plus the debt consolidators charge you on top of that.

For example

If you owe $60,000 in credit cards and you pay them the regular monthly payments, by the time you’re done you’ll have paid them something like $194,000. That’s a payment of at least $1800 to 2100/mo depending on how many different accounts, who they are with, varying interest rates and so on. Worse it would take 538 months or 44 years to pay it off. I checked the minimum payments at Bankrate.com.

Debt consolidation on the same debts will probably yield a payment plan of $1400 to $1600/mo for about 5 to 6 years and probably at least one lawsuit.

Your chapter 13 bankruptcy plan would pay back about $70,000.  You do that for 5 years only, and your payment is about $1167.

Call for a Free Consultation 951-200-3613

Image credit: lucato / 123RF Stock Photo

8 Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Pitfalls You Can Avoid

Posted on September 1, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

Chapter 13 is a Great Tool, Unless . . . 


There are pitfalls to avoid. Getting your case dismissed when you thought it was your last hope to save your house is a disaster.  Yet, it happens much more often than not.

Pitfall 1: Losing Your Job

Such a no-brainer, yet it may sound like something you cannot avoid. However, we all know that sometimes it is.  If you don’t get along with your boss, take a deep breath.  Take an anger management course.  Take a Tylenol. Take a break. Take a nap. Because it could be a case of lose your job, lose your house. If you’re in a chapter 13 bankruptcy to catch up the arrears on your house, then you must keep up your mortgage payments current and you must keep up your plan payments.  Quit paying either one and your chapter 13 will be dismissed.  Once it gets dismissed, and you no longer have bankruptcy protection, you go back into foreclosure.

Pitfall 2: Don’t Get a Divorce

Again, while it may sound like something that probably can’t be avoided, often it can be. Be the best spouse that you can be. Bring flowers. Bring chocolates. Bring movie tickets. Read, How Full Is Your Bucket?  On my wedding day, the officiant gave me 5 little magic words for when you come home and find the baby in the highchair, his food is everywhere, the dishes aren’t done, and the other kids have homework, and you’re just back from work and the 5 little magic words are: “What Can I DO To Help?”

Pitfall 3: Re-evaluate Your House Situation Carefully Before You File

Before you file the case, you should reevaluate the house situation carefully. Chapter 13s are designed to put you on a seriously Draconian budget. So, unless you’re making great money, a budget that is too tight will ruin your marriage or your relationship to your significant other in a big fat hurry.  Don’t lose your spouse over a house.

If you DO qualify for a Chapter 7 but want to file a Chapter 13 to try to save the house, then your budget will be under a huge strain, there won’t be any money for fun, recreation or vacations and I’ve seen that lead to divorces and split ups over and over again and then neither of you will end up with the house.

Pitfall 3: Make Your Chapter 13 Plan Payment On Time Every Time

Get behind, you’re toast.  Nuff said.

Pitfall 4: Get Health Insurance If You Don’t Have It Yet

If you’re not properly insured, with health, life, auto and disability, you’re an accident waiting to happen. If you get sick or injured, you’re outta there.  If you cannot pay the plan, then you will lose that house. 

Pitfall 5: Not Filing a Chapter 13 When You Should

If you make great money, and if you could just get all of your credit cards to agree to zero interest (0%), then you’d be able to pay everyone no problem, then do it.  That’s exactly what a Chapter 13 can do for you.  If you pay the regular payments it will take forever and you’ll pay almost 3 times what you owe before you’re through.  If you go to a Debt Consolidation, they’ll be able to reduce your interest rates, but not to zero percent (0%).  Paying at zero percent interest (0%) for 5 years usually will cut your payments by a little under half.  Take the deal.

Pitfall 6: Including Your Car 

If you can file a Chapter 13 without having to include your car, then avoid putting it in the Chapter 13 payment plan like the plague. If your bankruptcy gets dismissed, you’ll find that you’re now perhaps months or years behind on your payments on your car.  You’ll also find that you’ve got mega late fees now attached to the car note.  Also the repo guys will be on their way soon after your Chapter 13 gets dismissed for non-payment. I had clients who wanted save a house, but to do that they had to lower the car payment by including it in the 13.  I suggested that they move out from the beginning.  When the case finally got dismissed the balance on the car was approximately twice what it was before filing.

Pitfall 7: Technical Tricks and Traps

Most of these are things your attorney is going to have to be familiar with and help you avoid them.  However, my favorite is one that you can help avoid: In the Central District of California, in Riverside, you are required to pay your plan payments directly to the Chapter 13 Trustee at the hearings until the judge approves your payment plan. This approval is called a Confirmation Order. Your Chapter 13 plan payments are due 30 days after your case is filed and then ever month on the anniversary of your filing date. However, your hearing date will be approximately 45 days after you file.  If for some reason your judge continues your confirmation hearing, it will most likely be for another 45 days.  When you show up to that hearing, you must bring two (2) payments with you to the 2nd hearing, not just 1.  Because 45 + 45 = 90, your plan requires that you pay 3 plan payments by that 2nd hearing date, not 2.  If you don’t bring the 3rd with you, your case will be dismissed.

Pitfall 8:  Mal-Adjusting Your Tax Withholdings on Your Pay Checks

Whenever you pay less than 100% of your credit cards and medical bills and so on through your Chapter 13 payment plan, the bankruptcy trustee will want to intercept your tax refunds as you get them from the IRS every year until your case is over. Phew!

Many people try to adjust the withholdings so that they end up zeroing out their tax refunds. However, if you reduce it too much, you end up creating a new creditor for yourself, and it’s the biggest most powerful collection agency in the world, the IRS. But at least it’s not the meanest, that distinction goes to the Franchise Tax Board of the State of California.

What pitfalls did you encounter?  Pin, Tweet, Plus and Share This Article.


Call to set an Appointment, 951-200-3613

Image credit: dundanim / 123RF Stock Photo

10 Things You Must Know About Chapter 13 If You Do Not Qualify for Chapter 7

Posted on September 1, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

So, Attorney Gandalf has told you that “You Shall NOT Pass!”

That’s what Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings told the Demon-Balrog as it attempted to cross a narrow bridge deep in the Mines of Moria. So now you’ve been told by another attorney that you don’t qualify for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. You’ve failed the Means Test. Perhaps based on your own research you think your income might be too high. But it’s not like you’re wealthy and or made of money. You’re struggling just like everyone else, just at a higher level of income. At the end of the month, you have the same amount left over as everyone else; nothing.

What now?

Get a 2nd Opinion About the Means Test

I’ve seen cases where a client’s initial consultation with another attorney missed a couple of key items that made all the difference. When you come in for your free consultation, we’ll go over them together. Attorneys are not supermen, we’re fallible.

Okay, I’m not but some are. Some of the lawyers who are newer in the field of bankruptcy might not know all the ins and outs yet. I’ve filed several Chapter 7 cases where the first attorney thought that the clients didn’t pass the Chapter 7 Qualification Test called the Means Test.

Let me have a look at it if you’re in California, maybe I can help you. I’ve been a bankruptcy attorney since 1994 and I’m located in Murrieta conveniently close to Temecula, Riverside, Wildomar, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, Santa Ana and San Diego.

Sometimes Your Only Bankruptcy Option is Chapter 13

There are worse things, just ask Gandalf, more importantly ask the Balrog.  But if you have to file a Chapter 13, there are things you must know.  Here are the first 10 that come to mind off the top of my head.
First: It’s not the end of the world.  The sky will not fall. The police will not show up and arrest you (there is no debtor’s prison). Your friends will not laugh at you. In fact more of them have filed or are about to than you might imagine. You won’t walk around with a watermark of a B on your forehead. Frankly, if you make too much money to file a chapter 7 then that’s a good problem to have. You’re going to get to do what you promised to do in the first place; pay your debts.

Second: A Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a bankruptcy with a payment plan attached. If you don’t qualify for a chapter 7, your payment plan must be 60 months unless you’re able to pay it off earlier. You might even be able to strip your 2nd mortgage lien off of your house.

Third: If you don’t qualify for a chapter 7, your chapter 13 bankruptcy has a version of the Means Test too and it is used to determine, at least in part, how much of your unsecured non-priority debts you must pay back through your chapter 13 payment plan.

The definition of unsecured is any debt that is not attached to something that can be repossessed if you don’t make the payments. Priority debts, roughly speaking, are debts that either you owe directly to the government or that the government must pay if you don’t. So for instance, credit cards and medical bills are unsecured. So are student loans. Recent taxes are priority debts, which you do owe directly to the government. Child support is a priority debt too because if you don’t pay, then the custodial parent may be forced to go on welfare. But student loans on the other hand are not priority debts because if they were a lot of people would never qualify for Chapter 13. But that’s a whole nuther ball o’ wax!

Fourth: You may not have to pay all your credit cards, medical bills, student loans, old taxes (under the right circumstances and conditions of which there are many) and so on in full. Depending on your circumstances, you may be able pay off lates on your mortgage, back child support and recent taxes in full while paying only what you can afford to on your credit cards, medical bills, student loans, and old taxes.  Of course, you will still owe any unpaid student loans after your chapter 13 payment plan is over.

So, “it puts a book mark in the student loan.”  ~Anna.

Fifth: The other thing that determines how much of your unsecured non-priority debt is how much stuff you own. If you have accumulated a lot of stuff or a lot of unprotected savings, you may have to buy it back again. So, never ever have unprotected savings. Basically if you could protect only $50,000 worth of stuff but you have $75,000 then you must pay at least $25,000 into your chapter 13 bankruptcy. So, whichever requires you to pay more is the one that you go with.

Sixth:  Even if you have to pay everything in full, 100% of the principal on your unsecured non-priority debts, but if you can do it with 0% interest, then you will most likely have a lower payment than if you go to a debt consolidation program outside of a bankruptcy.

Seventh:  If you pay less than 100% of the principal they will take your tax refunds away from you every year you are in your chapter 13 bankruptcy so sometimes it’s better to bite the bullet do a 100% payment plan.

Eighth: If you owe more than $1,149,525 to secured debts such as your houses and cars, you can’t file a chapter 13.  Or if your credit cards and medical bills and other unsecured non-priority debts come to more than $383,175 then you cannot file a chapter 13. In those circumstances your options are consolidate your debts outside of bankruptcy, settle some of the debt and then file the 13 or try a 7 anyway and hope they don’t try to force you into a chapter 11 where you will have to pay more than $20K in attorney’s fees (and that’s just the beginning).

Ninth: If you’ve been behind on your payments to your houses and cars then in some jurisdictions your bankruptcy judge will require that you pay your regular monthly payment on your mortgage to your bankruptcy trustee rather than directly to your mortgage bank.  In the Central District of California in the Riverside Division, there is one judge that does require this.  Called a conduit payment, it helps to insure that you don’t get into any further trouble with your mortgage payments.  However, if you haven’t been behind in your house payments, then you are still allowed to pay directly even in that Judge’s Court.

Tenth:  A Chapter 13 bankruptcy has a qualification test too, it’s called the feasibility test, which means what it basically sounds like.  You have to be able to pay the payment plan.  If you can’t, then they dismiss your case or suggest that you convert to a chapter 7 bankruptcy.  So, if at a later date you lose a job, or your spouse loses their job or that second job, then maybe you can request that the judge assigned to your chapter 13 reduce your plan payment based on the new lower income or even request a conversion to chapter 7.

I’ll be expanding the list, so if there’s something you think should be on the MUST KNOW List, please put it in a comment below.  I look forward to your thoughts.

Lake Elsinore Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Posted on August 21, 2012February 15, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy can make it possible for you to hold on to your Lake Elsinore real estate. Did you know that rather than losing your home in a foreclosure or short sale there is a better plan?  If you’ve been out of work for a while and recently started working again, and if you’re behind on your house payments, a chapter 13 bankruptcy may be the right plan for you. 

If the mortgage company won’t give you enough time to pay off the missed payments and if it won’t give you a loan modification, then ask yourself, can you pay the regular mortgage payments if they’d just let you?  Do you owe credit cards or have a high car payment?  Because if you could pay the mortgage payment if they would just let you and if you could reduce your car payment and slash your credit card payments, then those payments could be used to pay off the missed house payments over 5 years at 0% interest.

You can restructure all of your debt including your mortgages, and with this strategic move you can get your life back. Meeting with the attorney will take less time than fitting all those game pieces together from the grocery store to see if you won the million dollars. The difference is you never win at those games, even after all of the money you’ve spent.

Unlike the lottery, you always win with a Lake Elsinore Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. 13 is your lucky number.  If you haven’t been a Bankruptcy Attorney for the past 17 years, you will probably not be skillful enough to carefully fit your financial circumstances together with the complicated Chapter 13 Bankruptcy rules. You need expert help. 

Putting your head in the sand is the easy way out, but things will not get better while waiting things out. You need to get in there to speak with the Attorney while there is still time to actually help you.  He will give you different strategies because he can see things in a way that you can’t. He has helped thousands of people with their bankruptcies already so he won’t be experimenting on you to “see if this might work”.

Who you choose as your attorney matters.  You wouldn’t go to a dermatologist for brain surgery. So don’t go to your uncle’s divorce lawyer for a bankruptcy.  Don’t go to your sister’s car accident attorney reorganize and consolidate your debts.  Mr. Nelson has done Bankruptcy for the entire existence of his practice, he didn’t just try a few cases out for the first time when the economy went sour.

Lots of Attorneys have come at the last minute from other areas of practice such as family law, business planning and construction defect.  Trying their hand at doing Bankruptcy because people with no home equity and no 401k left have no money to pay a divorce lawyer and less need to see one.  Not only has Mr. Nelson been a bankruptcy attorney since 1994, he lived in Tuscany Hills in Lake Elsinore for two years and knows the area.  Knows what the properties are worth.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy could even make it possible to remove your second mortgage from your home while still holding on to ownership of your property. You want to keep your car and your things while at the same time getting rid of a ton of your debt.  So call to speak with the Attorney to hear about your options. It’s how to “Get Your Life Back”. Remember, faith and fear cannot exist together at the same time, call 951-200-3613 to see Mr. Nelson so you can stop worrying. 

Murrieta Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Posted on August 8, 2012February 15, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

In Murrieta and Temecula a chapter 13 bankruptcy is a fantastic financial tool for restructuring your debt and making life easier and finances manageable. You could potentially reduce your monthly payments by several hundred or more than a thousand dollars.  Particularly when your debts are for the types of obligations that are revolving or renewing. 

If you’re considering a debt consolidation loan, a chapter 13 bankruptcy may be just what you need.  A chapter 13 bankruptcy allows you to consolidate your debts and separate them into classes.  You can reduce a car payment, both by cutting the interest rates and extending the term of the loan and paying it off ahead of the credit cards.  You can include child support and income taxes and give them a higher priority in the payment plan so that they get paid off completely and ahead of the credit cards too.  Your credit cards and medical bills and gambling markers get paid whatever is left over. 

Example: if you owed $15000 on a car, $15000 in back child support and $30,000 to credit cards, and if your budget only allowed a payment of $700.  You’d setup a 60 month plan for $700/mo.  Normally you’d have to pay probably $1500 to $2000 per month on that debt depending on interest rates and terms.  Of the $700/mo that you would pay for the 60 month plan, your credit cards would get approximately only $200/mo.  Less in fact because the bankruptcy trustee would take his fees out of that $200 and also the car would have a small interest rate applied but not compounded.

Call now to get started today or to see if a chapter 13 bankruptcy is right for you. Call 951-200-3613.

Debt Consolidation

Posted on August 7, 2012February 15, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

Non-Profit Debt Consolidation

There are tons of non-profit debt consolidators in the Murrieta and Temecula areas.   In general what they do is, set you up with a debt consolidation plan.  One place put it this way, “You will be able to combine most, if not all of your unsecured debt and make one single monthly payment.” Your accounts don’t vanish, you haven’t done a consolidation loan, but instead the debt consolidators pay your various accounts monthly as you pay the debt consolidation company.   They claim that you will become more organized and eventually learn to understand your finances better through participation in the program.  Finally they stated that debt consolidation “may reduce” your payments. 

You may have heard that “those who can’t, teach.” Well, if someone wants to teach you about your debts, ask yourself how much they can do about it? (As an aside, most of the teachers I know are quite able and deserve more than they’re getting right now, but these debt consolidators are often not even college grads.)

Hmmm, “May Reduce”?  Wait a minute, isn’t that why you are thinking about contacting these people in the first place, because you don’t have the income currently to meet all the financial obligations that you have right now?  I doubt that’s the deal your looking for. I expect you’re looking for a will-reduce-your-payments type of plan.  Certainly there are a few of you who can afford all of your debts and are just looking for a way to get organized and if that’s the case, maybe a debt consolidation company is right for you.  But if you’re like most people who are looking into this you’re probably looking to make a bit more progress than that.

What most of these companies will tell you that they do is that they contact your credit card companies and medical bills and what not, and they negotiate a payment for you.  Either they are going to try to reduce the principal, interest, extend the term of the contract or a combination of them. 

But what they do not tell you is that, if they’ve been doing this for a while, they already know which of your credit cards are going to play ball with them and which will not.  How could they not know?  Think about it.  However, they will never tell you that you have a  card or account that won’t want to participate. 

So, they set you up with a debt consolidation payment plan and never tell you that one of your accounts didn’t like the terms and decided not to participate.  Instead, after getting a reduced payment or even no payment at all, 6 months or 10 months later, that card sues you.  You call up and exclaim, Wells The Fargo!  Why am I being sued? And the debt consolidators tell you, “oh goodness, it appears that they’ve decided not to participate.”  At that point you’re going to have to file bankruptcy before you have your wages garnished or a bank levy hits your checking and savings accounts. 

And why does that sweet little old non-profit debt consolidation company do that to you?  For the money!  Yes, fans that’s right, for the money.  Just because they’re not for profit does not mean that the officers of the company don’t take a huge salary.  It just means that they cannot declare a dividend to share holders.  So, what difference does it make?  Answer: You’re paying bankruptcy prices to non-lawyers for a non-legal service without the great results you’d get if you simply filed a bankruptcy instead.

So wait a minute, you’re only paying them $20/mo and about $300 down to set it up, right? (low end some charge you thousands)  That’s a lot of months that they’ve set up your payment plan for.  How much did they tell you?  48 months?  36 months?  36 x 20 = $720 and if they have 500 of you making payments through this type of plan that’s $10,000/mo plus $150,000 in set up fees. And as one debt consolidator put it, “I keep the float.” Meaning every month he’s got tens of thousands in his accounts collecting interest from his bank and he absorbs that interest for himself.  And for all that they “may reduce” your payments which means that one of the credit cards may not participate and will sue you.  Maybe not but good luck getting a guarantee out of them.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Do you know what one is?  It’s a debt consolidation plan with the Federal Bankruptcy Code behind it backing you up and forcing your creditors to listen up and back down.  Creditors must take the plan.  I love it, we reduce interest rates on creditors to 0% and often reduce principals down to 5% or 10% of the total balances. 

Try as you might, you could pay off all your debts if only you didn’t have those pesky 20% to 29% interest rates.  With interest rates like that it will take decades to pay off your debt if you paid only the minimum payments.  They will just never let you pay down the principal. And it will be literally decades.

What if you owed say $60,000 in credit cards, medical bills, a repossessed car, and a student loan?  That would cost you $1000/mo . . . if you didn’t have to pay all that interest.  But with all the interest, late fees and penalties, you’re looking at monthly payments of $1500 to $2000/mo.  Maybe more.  Without the interest, penalties and late fees aren’t things tough enough already in Murrieta or Temecula?

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy gives you leverage that the debt consolidators only wish for.  You can force the credit cards, student loans and medical bills to take 0%.  If that’s all you can afford, then 0% interest.  If you can afford only $500/mo, guess what, then they get only about 50% of the principal. 

And none of them can sue you either, and if they want to opt out and not participate, they can, but what they’ll get is 1) they can’t sue you and 2) they get paid nothing at all.  Call me for more information on how to you might qualify for this type of bankruptcy debt consolidation.

Oh, and let’s keep it real, yes I do it for the money, but I’m also an attorney with years of experience offering a real solution to a very real problem. Not a way to “learn about” or “understand” your debts.  Let’s do something about it.  Call now 951-200-3613.

How to get Credit Reports?

Posted on January 18, 2012September 15, 2013 by David Nelson Leave a comment

EXPENSIVE CREDIT REPORTS

If you walk in with 3 credit reports that are a mile long each, I’m going to get your credit reports from my service, download them directly into my software and charge you for it. For a married couple for 3 a source report it is $53 and single $33 at this writing.

But don’t worry about that because my attorney’s fees are downright affordable compared to everyone else.

Free Credit Report

A great way to know how many creditors you have is to go to AnnualCreditReport.com to get your free annual credit reports. Make sure that you check mark all three credit reports on the page that asks which ones you want. Last I saw if you tried to check one at a time, it wouldn’t let you go back again unless you cleared your cookies first.

Also FreeCreditReport.com is a good place to go. They charge for a credit rating monitoring service but then allow you to get a free credit report with all three merged reports, once you have that, go back immediately and cancel the service before they charge you. You may have noticed that their link doesn’t work, they recently wrote to me and asked me to delink this post, I guess they didn’t like it that I was telling people to cancel their worthless service. 

Having your credit report is a great tool for assisting your bankruptcy attorney to process your bankruptcy petition whether in chapter 7 bankruptcy or chapter 13 bankruptcy. However, it doesn’t end there, you may have received collection letters, or letters from attorneys, or even a summons and complaint. Make sure that you bring those to your attorney because he or she doesn’t know about them unless you tell him. And if you verbally tell him and don’t provide it in writing, you may be wasting your breath.

Documentation Beats Conversation Every Time.

Not sure if you’ve been sued? But have you been delinquent on your debt payments for a while? Have you moved or had your house foreclosed?

You’d better Check the Courts and County Recorder’s Offices:

Check the County Recorder’s Offices to see if a creditor has recorded a judgment lien against you:

 Please SHARE, LIKE, PLUS, TWEET, PIN 

Call for a FREE Consultation 951-200-3613
(c) 2013 All Rights Reserved

$100 Starts

Posted on January 18, 2012February 15, 2013 by Leave a comment

Bankruptcy $100 Starts

You may have read this before. But what does it really start? You think you’re getting a cheap bankruptcy or an affordable bankruptcy, but what are you getting really?

Your chapter 7 case will not be filed until you have paid the attorney’s fees, plus the filing fee, plus the credit counseling in full and completed the credit counseling. Period. This is true whether you come to me or anyone else.

Some of the $100 Starts guys (definitely not all) might file your case for you for $100 but only if you pay the $281 filing fee for a chapter 13 bankruptcy which is a bankruptcy with a payment plan for 3 to 5 years. Do you want a bankruptcy with a payment plan for 3 to 5 years just so you can afford to pay your attorney to file the case?

$50 Starts

$100 or $50 starts you making your payment plan against your attorney’s fees to your attorney, and that’s all. In my case it starts me taking your creditor phone calls when they start coming in which is usually the following day. Many attorneys won’t even do that. They say they’ll take the calls but then don’t do it until you’ve paid in at least half of your attorney’s fees. Or they’ll straight up tell you that they won’t take any calls until you’ve paid in half of the attorney’s fees.

For $100 will they send letters or make phone calls to your creditors for you? Of course not, neither will I . . . well, maybe one if it’s urgent. But it sounds like that’s what you’re getting doesn’t it? Immediately a bunch of phone calls and letters going out from the attorney’s office to beat down the bad guys. But all you get for it is a payment plan.

What I will do is this; once you have made the down payment to me, I’ll take your creditor phone calls for you. You must start taking your own calls again and when the collection agents call, tell them that you’re going to file for bankruptcy and that your attorney’s name is David Nelson and ask them to call me and verify it at 951 200 3613. Of course, don’t do this until we have met, signed retainers and you have paid me at least a down payment. 98% of your creditors will never call you back directly once you do that. They call me and verify it then leave you alone. Every now and again, one of them gets overzealous and then I write that one a letter. Once they receive the letter they leave you alone.

Affordable Bankruptcy

But even if all you did was start your payment plan, how much of a dent have you made if the attorney charges you $2000 for your affordable bankruptcy? Nada mucho. My prices generally start from $700 for widows, orphans and cancer patients or disabled folks plus the filing fee, up to My usual range which is $1000 to $1500 in attorney’s fees plus the filing fee for most cases and of course if you have several houses or a ton of cars or a lot of income, it can go up steeply from there.

But even so, I’ve had clients with a half a dozen houses and even those cases were only $2100 in attorney’s fees. So, still a strong affordable price compared to most. Normally, I don’t charge for extra creditors or extra collection agencies. Most people don’t have more than about 50 anyway. So, it’s not that much extra work from 20 or 25 to get to 50 data entries in a keyboard.

Of course, If you have a garbage bag full of unsorted collection agents, it’s going to cost you a bit more if you want me to pick through it, sort the duplicates and type up more than that range. Just bring me one statement from each account. IF you bring me your credit report make sure it has the addresses of the creditors on it so that I don’t have to search the web for them. IF it doesn’t, make sure you seach the web for those addresses and put them on the credit report or make sure you bring extra money to pay me to do it.

A great way to know how many creditors you have is to go to AnnualCreditReport.com to get your free annual credit reports. Make sure that you check mark all three credit reports on the page that asks which ones you want. Last I saw if you tried to check one at a time, it wouldn’t let you go back again. Also FreeCreditReport.com is a good place to go. They charge for a credit rating monitoring service but then allow you to get a free credit report with all three merged reports, once you have that, go back immediately and cancel the service before they charge you.

So what makes more sense to you? $100 starts you on a payment plan to pay off $1500 or $2000 in attorney’s fees or $100 starts you on a payment plan to pay off $700 (if you’re disabled or a widow or sick) to $1200 .

Bankruptcy Attorney David Nelson on Google+