Maryland citizens, same as any hard working tax payers throughout the United States, never spent the time to look up the intricacies of bankruptcy protection the last few years even though the signs of a greater problem with the national economy and, by extension, the financial outlook for greater Maryland continued to worsen. Everyone knew that there was a stock market bubble artificially inflating prices. Everyone knew the exponential increase in real estate values, especially the properties around the Baltimore waterfront, begged reason. And everyone, particularly the best and the brightest of young Maryland, those with the most to lose, suddenly started to throw away their past due credit card notices and invent reasons to avoid answering phone calls for fear of harassment at about the same time without taking preventative measures or dealing with their consequences of past spending actions. Collection agencies become a terrible nuisance to Maryland borrowers once credit card payments are missed, and, with debt consolidation loan opportunities disappearing along side the sub prime mortgage industry, foreclosure proceedings for the primary residences of Maryland families have grown exponentially. So many Maryland home owners saw their home values shoot through ceilings unimagined without ever wondering over the reasons or worrying that the falsified highs would one day crash, and, unable to satisfy their monthly outlay, they’re starting to wonder about the necessity of Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
All of the credit card companies and the unsecured lenders that took advantage of Maryland residents’ newfound optimism, all of the newspapers and television stations that promoted consumer confidence above household savings and never intimated the fundamental failings of an economy addicted to perpetual growth, all of the Maryland statesmen calculating civic funds upon fantastical projections – they’ve the real responsibility to bear for the recent surge of bankruptcy declarations, but, as always, it’s the ordinary citizens of Maryland that will have to help protect themselves from the very real dangers credit card bills represent. The people of Maryland have always prided themselves on enterprise and practical risks, but our democracy also fostered a proud tradition of safeguards for those citizens, whether foolish or blighted by tragedy, that could not repay their debts. For generations of Maryland tax payers, that safeguard has been bankruptcy protection. Bankruptcy – the Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy program, overwhelmingly – helped so many people for so long grab hold of a fresh start that residents of Maryland, reasonably, took the system for granted and assumed that some form of governmental assistance would always be available should the worst come to pass.
In 2005, when the United States Congress passed legislation seemingly intended to merely tweak the existing statutes, neither the media nor most households in Maryland took much notice of the changes in regulations, but, now that the need for the utilization of bankruptcy courts to liquidate consumer debt has grown to encompass nearly every bread winner, we’ve all come to find that the bankruptcy protection we’ve long depended upon as a society no longer exists. It was bad enough that the United States government could be so directly led by the credit card companies’ lobbyist agendas, but the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act effectively crippled the one financial safety net that had inspired generations of Maryland residents to follow their dreams regardless of cost. For the men and women who risked everything that they could borrow to invest in what became Maryland, Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy programs encouraged adventure and innovation. For all of the proud citizens who loved their communities but lost the docks or factories or tax bases that had become the back bone of their families’ careers for over a century due to the shifting tides of free trade and the resultant undertow of modern capitalism, bankruptcy protection formerly ensured that no Maryland tax payer would be abandoned, but that protection has drifted away along with nearly everything else that our grandparents would understand about modern Maryland.
The vast and mystifying channels of the bankruptcy system already awaiting those Maryland residents who, in alarming numbers, have become irretrievably entangled in consumer debt may no longer be effectively navigated by Maryland tax payers without formal training in financial legal matters. Sad to say, for the portion of the Maryland populace least likely to afford additional bills or have the time available for intensive study and seemingly interminable meetings, legal representation may just be the only way to guarantee that their family receives the best odds for admittance to bankruptcy protection as well as the best opportunity to the family members to endure the inherent risks and privations with as little pain and loss of property as possible considering the harsh new regulations BAPCPA portends. It’s no small tragedy that bankruptcy protection essentially means greater hardships and loss to the already encumbered Maryland consumers in search of relief from their attendant burdens, and it’s a powerfully discouraging sign of the nation’s ailing economic condition that hard working citizens of Maryland remain in very real danger of the dissolution of their estates at the hands of the very bankruptcy system that was once implemented by a government by the people and for the people to protect them from the wages of capitalist excess. Maryland citizens that earn more than median income of the people in their state – which can go up from fifty two thousand dollars and change for a single resident to a shade over ninety six thousand dollars for a four member household depending upon the appropriate census figures at the time of filing of the petition; be sure and check out the most current figures available – won’t even be allowed to enter the Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy program. Furthermore, the citizens earning less than the median income line, tragically, would not be able to come up with the funds in advance to get the help that they need from worthwhile law firms.
In the current climactic condition of economic uncertainty and instability, it is now more than ever essential to sow seeds of sustainability and security by stock piling an arsenal of well researched information about the various forms of bankruptcy protection yet potentially useful for Maryland residents fighting to maintain all that they have earned, inherited, or hope to one day bequeath to their descendents. Chapter 7 debt liquidation bankruptcy, even in the halcyon days before the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act changed everything, always threatened the forfeiture of property. However, in the past few years after BACBPA altered the United States Bankruptcy Code statute surrounding asset registration within the initial bankruptcy petition (a small but important rewording of a single line that asks the Maryland debtors filing for bankruptcy to list their household possessions according to replacement value as opposed to the far more negligible resale value), the potential for borrowers to suffer severe and ultimately avoidable losses has never been greater. Fortunately, even though the federal protections have been seriously weakened through the recent legislation, the Maryland government has enacted relatively more lenient assistance on behalf of their residents, and, while this will likely require the help of a skillful bankruptcy lawyer who has experience with both the national bankruptcy model and the various Maryland exceptions, debtors filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy can at least limit just how bad things may become.
Once again, however, in order for Maryland debtors to fully exploit all of the potential nooks and crannies existing around the edges of the local and federal legalistic ephemerae, attorneys are more necessary than ever for the careful borrower seeking the least dangerous excursion through the wilds of bankruptcy protection. With all sorts of lethal sink holes of bureaucratic contradictions and purposefully contentious routines and restrictions lying in wait for the unsuspecting and ill informed Maryland consumer, too many debtors too arrogant or time-stressed (or, sadly, just too poor to afford adequate representation) flounder blindly amidst the quick sand of bankruptcy courts even as compound interest continues its steady trudge. Consequentially, the obstacles set in place by the supposed watchmen of democracy let down not only the vulnerable and voiceless but also the heritage of our founding fathers in Maryland and the rest of the United States. By demolishing bankruptcy and relinquishing any coherent economic refuge to the craven political shenanigans of Big Credit, our government – though Maryland, as we’ve said, softens the blow through property exemptions peculiar to residents that can prove official residency – surrendered the security of its citizens, and no borrower should feel at all comfortable that formal bankruptcy protection could necessarily save their assets, their home, or even, should garnishments be achieved through court action, the future wages that their household may earn for years or even decades to come.
Grim as the preceding paragraphs may seem upon first reading, all hope is not lost. Though ordinary Maryland consumers, loathe as they’ve been to investigate even the presumably dependable financial-life saving stratagem of Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, do not know much more about the extra governmental debt relief solutions than they’ve absently gleaned through television commercials of billboard slogans. Consumer Credit Counseling, the most popular by far of the debt management alternatives, doesn’t even provide much in the way of credit counseling, and, in terms of actually limiting – much less actively reducing – the unsecured debt loads held by Maryland households, the Consumer Credit Counseling services do little more than organize payment due dates and fractionally lessen the combined interest rates: all for relatively extravagant prices built into the payment schedules and at a cost to the Maryland family’s credit rating that rivals or even exceeds the damage done from Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Similarly, even though every family with a residence or even a vehicle of significant worth will be deluged with offers of debt consolidation loans (regardless of the credit crunch and mortgage industry implosion), putting off til tomorrow what Maryland borrowers should be paying today is hardly a proper plan of attack. Debt settlement negotiation, however, takes the fight to where it belongs, and, demanding that the credit card companies suddenly cut away forty to fifty percent of the debt burdens by threatening the creditors with their clients’ imminent attempts toward Chapter 7 bankruptcy declaration (whether or not that would even be, all things considered, a reasonable option for the Maryland debtors in question), the settlement professionals manage to both significantly reduce what the clients owe while preparing them for total repayment in only a matter of years. Debt settlement negotiation doesn’t feature the immediacy of the bankruptcy solution Maryland debtors once depended upon for solace, but, with governmental protections so weak amidst the economic downturn, Maryland borrowers should take it upon themselves to find the answers.
The decision to reach out for help with your debt is not one that's easy to make. You were raised to "do the right thing", but now it’s nearly unbearable. You struggle along while your creditors are turning up the heat. And now you’re at the point where the late fees, penalties and interest expense make it impossible to keep your head above water.
Ask yourself this. If you could eliminate your debt without permanently damaging your credit, why wouldn't you?
