Bank finance articles and tips

It's no secret that declaring bankruptcy certainly gave you control over your finances - and you're certainly eager not to end up back in the bankruptcy courts again. But thanks to a combination of the shrinking job market and the rising cost of living, you're worried that you'll end up right where you started: filing a petition in a bankruptcy court.

Even if you've got your bills under control now, it's always important to use the recession as an opportunity to make sure that your financial education is on the right track - especially if you're trying to avoid bankruptcy again.

With America seeing one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, it's no surprise that over 1 million individuals will file for bankruptcy this year. Many people have been putting off filing bankruptcy over the last couple years hoping that things were going to get better. According to the data, it seems to be getting much worse.

Unemployment is standing at 9.2% nationwide without taking into consideration the number of individuals that are partially employed or have just given up going back to work completely. These people fall off the radar and are no longer recorded as a statistic.

Filing for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy can provide the immediate financial relief you'll need. Chapter 7 bankruptcies are relatively quicker than their more complicated Chapter 11 and Chapter 13 counterparts - and as you don't have to undergo any repayment plans, you'll immediately experience relief from your biggest debts.

However, that doesn't mean that you'll experience relief from ALL of your debts; in fact, there are exemptions to this rule that can ultimately determine whether or not you'll file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. If one of your biggest debts can't be discharged by a Chapter 7, you and your bankruptcy attorney view other alternatives.

With this in mind, let's take a look at the debts that can't be discharged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

It has been said that delinquent borrowers can save their homes from being foreclosed by filing for personal bankruptcy. Read on to learn more about the different types of bankruptcy and how filing for bankruptcy affects the home foreclosure process.

What is Foreclosure?

Foreclosure is defined as the legal process where a borrower's ownership of a property is terminated, usually due to inability to make mortgage payments. The process of foreclosure usually involves the forced sale of the property where the proceeds of the sale are used to pay off the mortgage debt.

When you are looking to get credit after a bankruptcy filing, you are going to find that you are not going to have the lowest interest rates and incentives that many others have available to them. Instead, you will need to be prepared to go a more expensive route to start improving you credit and to get the credit lines you need after bankruptcy.

One of the first choices you are going to have when you have completed the bankruptcy filing and are ready to get a line of credit is to get a secured credit card through your bank. With this process, you are going to open up a secured account that holds the funds that will act as your credit line. While it is open, you are not going to be able to access these funds at all. If you continue to pay your accounts on time and avoid going over your limit, your bank can refund your funds and increase your credit line over time. This will just depend on their banking practices.

One of the common misconceptions about filing for bankruptcy is the 90 day rule. If you ask debtors that are filing bankruptcy if they understand what the 90 day rule is, you get answers like, you can't buy anything for 90 days prior to the bankruptcy filing or you stop paying your bills 90 days before filing. Both of them sound like they could be true, but in reality there is no 90 day rule that makes a difference to a debtor.

Many debtors filing for bankruptcy have heard of it but have no idea of how it works. The 90 day rule allows the bankruptcy trustee to recover payments that a debtor made on legitimate debts, if those payments during that 90 day time frame gave the creditor more money than they would have gotten out of the bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy code calls these payments, preferences.