Even as the greater financial structure of our nation runs aground, Mississippi residents, the same as seemingly all Americans over the last decade, have been reluctant to confront their debt problems. Mississippi borrowers allowed unsecured loans to continue to increase in vain hopes that they would be able to stem the mighty course of compound interest, and credit card account levels kept rising until the economic crisis literally overflowed the banks. This failure to accept responsibility for overwhelming debt loads helped fuel the credit crisis swamping the global economy, and the effects have trickled down to negatively affect the lives of nearly every Mississippi family. Real estate values are down, unemployment rates are up, and, according to most economic analysts, the flood of negative economic indicators won’t dry up any time soon. Much as reckless purchasing has helped the United States’ prior expansion and the relative health of Mississippi businesses and households, the relentless stream of spending – the constant, throbbing lifeblood of our industry – just kept rolling along, but. as a society we can no longer overlook the muddy depths of our credit accounts. Preventative measures and proper family budgets would have been a good idea for Mississippi households once upon a time, but, with the river at the door, every Mississippi family must marshal their resources and deal with the debt problem at hand. Bankruptcy’s an ugly solution to dangerous levels of debt, and, perhaps because they’d hoped they would never need to employ the procedure, so many borrowers within our state seem to have purposefully avoided educating themselves about Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection. Partially abandoning family finances to the oversight of government officials can be depressing and even frightening, but, once Mississippi borrowers start missing payments and worrying about ever eliminating their credit card balances, it’s time that they learned more about every method of debt resolution and – at a certain point of excessive credit card accounts – that unfortunately must include bankruptcy.
However, just because Mississippi heads of households identify their problems with debt and realize that more information about Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy programs may be of some eventual benefit to their family, it can still seem a little daunting at first glance. After all, so much of the bankruptcy process has changed over the last few years following the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, and government resources do little more than repeat the intentionally confusing legal verbiage of the United States Bankruptcy Code. The federal government website may as well be written in Sanskrit for all that the ordinary borrower will be able to decipher the language used, and the Mississippi Attorney General’s office is not tremendously easier to understand. Most Mississippi households that could afford legal representation will inevitably want to take advantage of an attorney that has experience in dealing with bankruptcy, but, during this initial phase of discovery, few debtors will want to spend the money on what would almost certainly be a lengthy explanation – they charge by the hour, after all – of the fundamentals behind bankruptcy regulations and procedures. Furthermore, since the statutes and property exemptions peculiar to Mississippi could be so different from those of other states, any information that covers the nation as a whole would be almost irrelevant, and, since the various parts of the Mississippi and United States bankruptcy codes change so often, the legitimate usefulness of all of the do it yourself bankruptcy books should be viewed with a deep suspicion.
All the same, there are a few basic principles of bankruptcy procedures within Mississippi that could be illustrated relatively quickly and with a certain amount of dependability regardless of what may have been altered since the date of this article’s publication. The heart of Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy – the bankruptcy protection that aims to liquidate all applicable unsecured debt of Mississippi consumers (largely credit card bills and medical charges; decidedly not back taxes or student loans) which we will focus upon since Chapter 13 debt re-organization bankruptcy should only be of interest to Mississippi home owners worried about losing their houses to foreclosure – remains the 341 meeting of borrower and, if they could be bothered, the creditors. The Mississippi court trustee will oversee the 341 bankruptcy meeting along side, if needed, other administrators and, in extremely rare cases for borrowers filing in Mississippi that have not demonstrated extravagant appetites, agents acting on the behalf of the creditors. In general circumstances, especially considering the current turmoil affecting the United States economy and Mississippi households in particular, there will be other cases surrounding the borrower in question, and the borrowers will wait with their attorney to be called for questioning. This presumes, once again, that the Mississippi borrowers have been able to pay the money for bankruptcy attorneys, but we honestly cannot imagine how any family would not seek out practiced expertise before embarking on such a monumentally dangerous enterprise. So, presuming all of that, the Mississippi consumer filing for bankruptcy protection will be able to bring their attorney to the 341 meeting and discuss all elements of the case with them even during the proceedings should they find some objections to raise. Even those borrowers that truly believe they have nothing to hide from the Mississippi courts should welcome sage advice from professionals who have been through this sort of thing many times. In the years after the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act was enacted, the guidelines informing necessary paperwork documentation have become increasingly complicated, and, if every part of the bankruptcy petition and creditor matrix is not properly filled out, the borrower’s case may be immediately dismissed by the Mississippi court trustee.
Because the paperwork and the associated regulations are so complex, the usefulness of attorneys experienced in Mississippi bankruptcy law really can’t be sufficiently emphasized, and borrowers who want to find the most successful route to the elimination of unsecured debts often start working with their lawyers from the moment that they decide that Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection would be in their family’s best interest. By the time the borrowers file the original petition with the Mississippi county clerk, their lot has already to some degree been decided. For instance, whenever the borrower knows that they shall soon await a significant refund from the Internal Revenue Service, the statutes become infinitely more complicated, and the advice of their attorney would be essential. In brief, depending upon the number of members of the Mississippi household, some amount of the return shall be given to the household as well as the entirety of the Earned Income Tax credits. However, so much of the intricate details surrounding the process depends upon the length of time the borrower worked at the job in the year previous to filing for bankruptcy and a multitude of other criteria. Certainly, should the Mississippi borrowers have already received the refund, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend or invest the funds into assets not potentially available for seizure by the Mississippi courts, but, there again, it’s difficult for the average consumer to be absolutely certain which purchases could be considered damaging without consultation with attorneys experienced in Mississippi bankruptcy law. Sudden payments to one specific creditor may actually be rendered forfeit by the trustee and legally seized because they were considered preferential: or, even worse, the creditor that received the payments may be dismissed from the Mississippi bankruptcy process which would mean their debts would not be viable for discharge. Even debts repaid to family members within a year of filing the original bankruptcy declaration would not necessarily be safe.
This is, perhaps, an unlikely event, but it could happen. Under the power of the United States Bankruptcy Code – which local Mississippi regulations have no authority to disregard – the courts may actually collect the funds given to family members and disperse them to the various lenders affected by bankruptcy. Any payments deemed to be preferential according to the terms set down by the United States Congress could be revoked at any time even as the actual bankruptcy declaration would be declined by the Mississippi court trustee. Here again, the knowledge held by Mississippi bankruptcy attorneys takes almost too much importance: the borrowers who do not have enough money on hand to afford bankruptcy attorneys (the most successful ones do not, hard as this may be to believe, work on credit) could certainly argue this point. Chapter 7 bankruptcy, under the guidelines legislated through the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, is no longer even guaranteed for those Mississippi heads of household who make more than the average citizen of the state. As much as anything written down within this article, the figures for the income stipulation are continually calculated and re-calculated according to the figures from the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Census Department so reporting the momentary monetary levels would be especially meaningless for these purposes, but Mississippi borrowers who have made a decent living over the years prior to filing should be highly nervous about their potential for entry to the Chapter 7 debt elimination program regardless of the total amount of their unsecured debts or even their income at present (which, given the economic troubles of the nation and Mississippi, have fallen across the board for just about everyone besides the bankruptcy attorneys).
While preventing the abuse of bankruptcy protection may sound like a worthwhile goal, the 2005 legislation in practice removed Chapter 7 debt elimination as a realistic method for the only Mississippi residents that could comfortably pay the fees for the bankruptcy lawyers now so integral to effective navigation of the program. Borrowers who manage to enter Chapter 7 bankruptcy without proper legal representation could too easily find themselves and their families at the mercy of the trustee named by the Mississippi courts to oversee, and too many households have to stand back and watch their assets be dispersed to strangers during auction without any legal recourse. In accordance with Mississippi bankruptcy laws, the debtor is allowed to retain possession of certain assets, with specific limitations and restrictions, ranging in scope from material goods to monetary assets and benefits. While these limitations are clearly delineated in terms of dollar value, the classification and definition of one’s property can present contentious conditions not easily resolved that result in significant and possibly avoidable losses to the Mississippi debtor’s estate. It is so important to those facing or even considering the option of bankruptcy to have an awareness and understanding of what the laws and protections include as well as exclude and a thorough comprehension of the potential extent of loss or refuge every bankrupt citizen is subject to under Mississippi state laws.
The familiarity with these Mississippi exemptions which are so whimsically defined by the local statutes – homesteads will be safeguarded according to the amount of the mortgage subtracted from the appraised value of the primary residence so, with the precipitous drop in real estate values, at least something positive could be gleaned from this recession – must be the driving current behind successful Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, but, before budgeting the money necessary to arrive at the conclusion that bankruptcy would not make sense for their families, Mississippi residents should take a look at the other debt relief alternatives that are out there. As the reports from the national media reveal a steep decline in the rate of prosperity, which should be no surprise to the Mississippi rank and file whose households are already directly experiencing the drain upon their resources, simply treading water in order to keep from going under can become more and more of a strain as the bills accrue and the debts accumulate. The message should be loud and clear by now to all Mississippi residents: the time has come as never before for protective measures as the financial prospects become ever more dim. Consumers, debtors, and home owners alike around Mississippi are venturing into dangerous waters without an informed plan of action in the event of a setback that could, in the turbulence of our current era, gather destructive momentum inundating the security of a Mississippi estate and preventing the borrowers’ escape. Still, Mississippi borrowers could avoid self defeating tactics in light of the new developments designed to alleviate the afflictions of debt that the new restrictions of bankruptcy have failed to remedy.
The debt settlement negotiation option extends the possibility of debt relief without the injurious results bankruptcy imposes, and the Mississippi consumer could elude severe long term penalties whenever they have full knowledge of the debt relief alternative offered by the debt settlement organizations headquartered both in Mississippi and over the internet. Debt settlement consultants are trained to examine the Mississippi clients’ individual financial characteristics and set a course toward recovery while avoiding bankruptcy protection’s intractable loss of assets and financial status. The debt settlement companies provide households of our state with assistance and advice for debt management while forcing the creditors to lessen the funds that are owed. Elucidating safe passage away from the dead end bankruptcy route and guiding their clients toward assurance of a secure and debt free future, debt settlement negotiation has already served as a life saving raft for thousands of Mississippi borrowers, and, even if many of the Mississippi debtors found in the end that bankruptcy would have better odds for their family’s fortunes, steering the household’s finances requires a thorough understanding of every bend in the river.
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?
