Monday, December 7, 2009

Should You File For Bankruptcy To Stop Foreclosure?

By Ginger Taylor

When you are about to lose your home, you don't care about anything else. It consumes your every thought. The only way you will be able to relax is to get the foreclosure called off so you can go back to enjoying your home and your life. Well, as a last ditch effort there is a method available to stop foreclosure on your home.

Chapter thirteen bankruptcy offers a way to keep the mortgage company from foreclosing on your home. When you file, the foreclosure stops immediately until the bankruptcy process is completed. With this type of bankruptcy, you submit a plan to repay your debts. However, this plan is scrutinized by your creditors and must be accepted by a judge in order for the bankruptcy to proceed.

Before you file for bankruptcy, you will be required to attend a credit counseling session. This can help you determine whether you really need to file for bankruptcy or if your debts can be repaid in some other way. If the credit counseling agency prepares a debt repayment plan for you, it must be submitted to the court along with your bankruptcy filing.

You are given fourteen days from the time you file for chapter thirteen bankruptcy until your proposed repayment plan has to be on file with the court. This window can enable you to go ahead and file if you need to get the foreclosure on your home stopped before you can finish your plan.

Before the judge considers whether to accept your plan, you are required to appear at a meeting of your creditors. The purpose of this meeting is to allow the mortgage company and other creditors to try to poke holes in your plan. Your creditors have a right to object if they do not feel they are getting as much as they are entitled to by law under your repayment plan.

Once your creditors have had a chance to object to the provisions of your plan, the judge will review it and make a decision. If your repayment plan is approved, you will have to make bimonthly or monthly payments to the court's trustee. The money will then be distributed to your creditors according to the plan.

The biggest drawback to using chapter thirteen bankruptcy to stop foreclosure is that if you are unable to pay the payments as agreed, you could still end up going through foreclosure. The judge can dismiss your case or make you go through chapter seven, where your assets are sold to cover your debts, if you don't pay everything as agreed. For this reason, you should consider all of the potential risks and benefits before deciding to go ahead with filing for bankruptcy.

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