{"id":366,"date":"2012-09-14T21:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/?p=366"},"modified":"2022-09-13T19:32:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T19:32:29","slug":"how-much-costs-not-file-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/how-much-costs-not-file-bankruptcy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much it Costs to NOT File Bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Dave Kelly, Minnesota Bankruptcy Lawyer<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Promptly<\/a>
How Much Will You Lose if You Don’t File Bankruptcy?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly every day I am asked how much it costs to file bankruptcy. Here I turn the question around and ask – assuming that you already know that you qualify for bankruptcy – how much is it costing you to not file.<\/p>\n

So often when someone comes to my office, the story I hear involves the loss of things we could have saved if the bankruptcy had been done sooner. In the past few months I have seen all the situations I am about to list here:Large tax refund used to try and get caught up on debts, but it wasn’t enough.<\/p>\n

Use of home equity line of credit to pay unsecured debts. What this does is take perfectly good equity in the home, which in bankruptcy would have been exempt, and squander it on unsecured credit card debt. Even after maxing out the home equity line of credit, the credit card debt is still to high to manage. Had a bankruptcy been filed sooner, the debts could have been eliminated and the equity in the house saved.<\/p>\n

Mortgage payments stopped so credit card payments, or medical bill payments, can be made. The bill collectors for the credit cards – and lately those for the medical providers too – will often be a lot more agressive than those for the mortgage company. In this scenario, people allow themselves to be pressured into paying credit card or medical bill payments before they make their mortgage payment. The mortgage falls so far behind that foreclosure is started. The mortgage is now too far behind to ever be brought up to date, and the house will be lost. A bankruptcy before things got this far would have eliminated the medical bills and credit card debt and saved the house.<\/p>\n