The Only Way to Mess up a Chapter Is Be Dishonest With Me or the Trustee, or to Not Show up for the Creditor Meeting
Video Transcribed: Oklahoma Bankruptcy Attorney Edward Kelley here, answering your bankruptcy questions with oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro. We are finishing up video three in this series on chapter seven.
So as always in these series, we start out with who’s a good candidate, in this case, under the income caps without being behind on secure debt on home or vehicle and without assets and without non-dischargeable debt.
Those are the good candidates for seven. So success stories. Well, that’s always video three. By far, an Oklahoma chapter seven is the easiest to be successful. Basically. I could probably tell you at the beginning if you’re going to be successful.
It doesn’t require much effort on your part other than taking your credit counseling classes before and after filing, giving me the information that I need, showing up at your creditor meeting, or in this case now calling into your creditor meeting and signing any reaffirmations that you need to get.
So basically the only way you could screw it up is be dishonest with me or the trustee, or to not show up for your creditor meeting. And even that they’re very nice about continuing them or resetting them.
So the success, I guess, the recidivism rate, if you want to call it that, I’ve been around long enough that I’ve had a couple of waves of clients file. You got an eight year wait before you can do another seven.
You walk in, pay me and boom you’re out of trouble other than those non-dischargeable debts that I mentioned. So maybe there’s not as hard of a road as you’re going to have.
Well, certainly there’s not as in a 13 or an 11, so maybe less opportunity to learn new strategies and change old habits. But that said there are a lot of people, especially people that gamble, that quit. That’s really an outside issue that causes you to be in a seven, but that’s like drug addiction or something.
That’s a fight had outside of the bankruptcy court. And some people, Dave Ramsey I always tell people, check his stuff out, great reasons sources on how to manage your money. The classic cutout the Starbucks and you’ll save 10,000 over the year, that kind of thing. Highly encourage people to look into that. But a success story means no more problems. Get your one credit card, keep it at a 30% balance.
Supposedly that’s the magic trick to get your credit score to go up and then don’t use credit when you don’t need to. Well, don’t use it at all, unless you are doing it strategically. Of course, buying a home, buying a vehicle, nothing wrong with getting a loan, but get a good one, get a good something that’s going to retain some value.
Get a good interest rate, refinance when it’s time. And for some people it’s better not to get credit at all. It’s just kind of a slippery slope, but anyway, hope that’s helped. That’s a little overview of chapter seven.