In a bit of tragic irony, even during the wealthiest period in the long history of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, consumers successful and otherwise continued borrowing more than ever as the credit card companies and mortgage lenders exploited the newly limited regulations and escalating real estate bubble. No matter how silly the entire situation may now seem after the fall nor how dire the repercussions for individual households and our national financial system, too many Massachusetts borrowers whimsically took for granted that the good times would ever continue and spent as if they would never have to confront the depths of their prior largesse. During this frenzy of madcap speculation, while the financial papers were dominated by unrelentingly positive signs for Massachusetts and television commercials intimated that indulging in ever increasing consumer debt loads was virtually a patriotic duty for each citizen, the political action committees supported by the credit card conglomerates (seemingly controlled by the only Americans who’d ever bothered to properly think about what Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy truly meant for this country) snuck legislation through the United States congress which turned bankruptcy protection into an expensive, difficult, humiliating effort that teased Massachusetts households with impossible qualifications and of which our fore fathers would barely recognize. For Massachusetts borrowers who simply assumed Chapter 7 bankruptcy assistance would always be with them, sudden comprehension of today’s constrained paradigm could come as a disastrous shock which may quite literally split apart families and disable all future economic opportunities of even the most ambitious citizen.
Nobody knows quite that much about the fire department, after all, and it’s rather macabre to overly dwell on the proximity or technique of the Massachusetts city or community protectors. Most Massachusetts households actively hope that they would never need to investigate more information about the fire department than would be absolutely necessary and certainly never see the officials up close. Nevertheless, those same households do still assume that the fire department would be there to save their family and home stead should a conflagration develop. To a point, Massachusetts households may helplessly think of bankruptcy protection as their birthright as Americans. The court magistrates have not quite the social esteem nor heroic image of proud fire fighters, but, when consumers realize that their life long presumption about the governmental safety net has been misguided, their sudden terror and confusion is not that far different in the mind set of an ordinary United States citizen or Massachusetts resident who learns at precisely the wrong moment that the hydrants outside their house are not connected to the water supply. The absence of media attention both within the state and around the nation could be considered almost criminal when the potentially disastrous consequences of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act are fully explored. In the same way that Massachusetts home owners at the least test their fire alarms and keep tabs on the reputations of the local department, all consumers in New England and everywhere in the western world who have taken on debts (even those debts, like back taxes or criminal penalties, not of their own volition) absolutely must make certain that they recognize the current responsibilities of these obligations and the limitations of the government in terms of eventual Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection this day and age.
In spite of whether or not the residents of Massachusetts ever actually plan to file for bankruptcy – regardless of whether or not they even ideologically agree with the program – there is simply no excuse for ignorance of such an immensely important element of our democracy. Remember, it’s not like bankruptcy’s a new idea. Proud and steadfast Americans from Abraham Lincoln on down have had occasion to need the help of the government upon occasion, and even a surprising number of our greatest inventors and industrialists – no matter how they prized self reliance after the success of themselves and their families was all but assured – were once desperate enough to ask the courts for protection from their debtors. It’s a different world, to be sure, the average Massachusetts household (which, by some estimates, now holds eleven different charge cards from unsecured creditors and retail stores with combined balances above ten thousand dollars), but the need for bankruptcy protection from pressing obligations arguably has never rang more true. Once again, in Massachusetts, even kindergartners have at least heard of bankruptcy as a ploy with which to escape from creditors, but, for relevant entertainments, such an action generally results in losing the game. For, perhaps, this reason, Massachusetts consumers as they age and either suffer untoward calamities devastating their household economic structure or develop destructive or fool hardy spending habits that result in unsecured financial obligations that accrued almost before they realized the extent of their problem do not endeavor to learn any more about bankruptcy than that the program (though necessary and, those dark tea times of the financial soul, something of a dim comfort should every single thing go awry) is to be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately, just a few years ago, while borrowers in Massachusetts and around the country were enjoying the fruits of the extra ordinary post millennial economic expansion sweeping America, things changed utterly regarding bankruptcy protection. Despite the ever escalating costs of the bankruptcy procedure, more residents of Massachusetts than ever before may be forbade Chapter 7 protection specifically because the heads of household were found to make more money than the average earner of the state. To reiterate, the legitimacy of a Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy petition – the sort of bankruptcy that actually eliminates those credit card accounts and unsecured debts that the congress hasn’t yet relegated from salvation; the only sort of debt that most borrowers, unless they are desperate to stall foreclosure proceedings on their primary residence would ever wish to enter – regardless of the amount of debt that the consumers actually hold and no matter how upside down the relationship between the Massachusetts family’s monthly earnings and their actual household expenses. First of all, Massachusetts borrowers really should take a look at all of the costs that any personal bankruptcy, whether Chapter 7 debt liquidation or the Chapter 13 debt re-organization program’s to be employed, will now necessarily entail. These fees range from the two hundred and ninety nine dollars that each borrower must give the Massachusetts county clerk (in the form of a money order, to be certain; personal checks are not allowed and consumers should not even think about bringing a credit card) along with their original bankruptcy petition filled out to the best of their ability.
No matter what, the filers must disclose every single item that they may possibly claim to possess regardless of assumed value. The borrowers’ bankruptcy attorney should also be of invaluable assistance throughout this process though the inevitable costs for expert practitioners outstanding in their field may be more than many Massachusetts households could hope to afford. With the new laws so very punitive for consumers that fail to complete the lengthy and damnably counter intuitive bankruptcy petition to the agreement of the Massachusetts court, only a remarkably brave consumer that hasn’t some education in the financial arts would even think about declaring Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy bereft of a legal counsel who’s spent a lifetime defending the consumer rights and household property of Massachusetts debtors. Leaving aside the difficulty borrowers face with even entering the program given such an arbitrary point of eligibility, it is also far more likely – though the local statutes of Massachusetts boast exemptions to the property of newly bankrupt families exponentially more comfortable for households suffering through the bankruptcy program – that assets ranging from pets to wedding rings to the very family residence. An explanation of the differences between federal statutes and the Massachusetts guidelines could take several times the length of this article, and, still, with such a litany of loopholes and contradictory presumptions, only the most seasoned bankruptcy attorney (who’ll expect to be paid as such) should be trusted to parse the documentation.
With criminal penalties for fraud as the ultimate repercussion for sloppily compiled bankruptcy declarations and asset seizure by the Massachusetts courts whimsically judged by trustees prone to look ever more suspiciously upon the unaccompanied amateur borrower arguing his own Chapter 7 debt elimination deservedness, Massachusetts debtors must do whatever necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones from bankruptcy itself. Presents to family members and friends could easily be deemed improper regardless of intent, for instance. Since actual value remains so subjective, any property that was given away in the year before bankruptcy declaration could be legally taken by the Massachusetts courts and held over for auction. Drawing upon the force of the new regulations, court trustees will have little recourse other than to presume the worst (that a grandfather’s Christmas stocking hid the borrower’s attempts to disperse property in light of potential forfeiture) and deal accordingly. Even those Massachusetts households that could comfortably afford the aid of seasoned attorneys may still wonder whether the hypothetical benefits of Chapter 7 bankruptcy warrant the risk: particularly with the blossoming of even more successful alternatives within the past few years, debt settlement negotiation primary among these. The settlement negotiation solution does not so much thoroughly replace bankruptcy in the manner of consolidation tactics which juggle obligations for future remuneration as employ the still extant threat Chapter 7 debt elimination presents to unsecured creditors.
Only those burdens covered under Massachusetts bankruptcy protection would be addressed through debt settlement since, otherwise, the negotiation process has rather less teeth. Furthermore, even the most efficient settlement professionals should consider themselves fortunate to chew down the agreed upon debts by much more than sixty percent of the original holdings no matter their relationship with the lender representatives, and some of the more stubborn creditors shall refuse to dicker about with their legally held debts altogether. To be absolutely honest, some Massachusetts residents may indeed be better off with throwing their lot with bankruptcy debt elimination regardless of the razed and salted family fortunes inherent, but, with debt settlement negotiation professionals opening themselves to complimentary consultations, we’d recommend a brief voyage of discovery. Especially the settlement analysts housed on web sites; they haven’t nearly the operating costs as store front financiers and, since there’s no longer much of a need for face to face communication, they’re free to pass along their savings to the consumers. So much of consumer credit availability and bankruptcy protection for Massachusetts residents has been unrecognizably changed over the past decade, but, should debt settlement negotiation be successful, some aspects do seem to change for the better.
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?
