The Top 10 Benefits You Should Know

      Chapter 7 is an ideal way to wipe out your unsecured debts. It doesn’t matter how much you owe in unsecured debt. You could owe $5,000, you could owe $50,000, you could owe $250,000, or you could owe $1 million. When you successfully complete your Chapter 7, you walk away with a discharge after about four months, and you are free and legally released from those debts. Your debts have been forgiven, and you can enjoy your fresh financial start.

Chapter 7 can be your legal bail out.

     The following objectives can usually be accomplished by successfully completing Chapter 7:

1. Completely wipe out your credit card debt. Chapter 7 is an excellent way to completely wipe out all of your credit card debts and to stop those bill collectors and collection agencies from constantly calling you. You will no longer owe them any money at all.

2. Wipe out medical bills, dental bills, doctor bills, hospital bills. You can wipe out all sorts of medical bills that are not covered by insurance, and you can be completely released of all responsibility for those bills.

3. Wipe Out utility bills such as gas, electric, telephone, cable, and cell phone bills.

a. You can wipe out your utility bills. A public utility such as Atlantic City Electric, Verizon, and South Jersey Gas must continue to provide you with service in the future. If your service has been shut off for non payment, they will have to turn your service back on when your case is filed.

b. Cell phone bills are a little bit different. Cell phone bills can be wiped out, but since they are not a public utility, cell phone companies are not legally required to continue to provide cell phone service to you. However, other cell phone providers will probably be willing to give you service, and you can usually keep your current cell phone number.

4. Wipe out income taxes that are more than 3 years old and that were filed more than 3 years ago. Chapter 7 can often help you wipe out certain income taxes owed to either the IRS or to the State of New Jersey.  We need to specifically review each situation before we can advise our client whether or not his/her income taxes can legally be wiped out in a chapter 7.

5. Discharge personal unsecured loans. If you have an unsecured loan from a place such as Beneficial, Household Finance, CitiFinancial, American General, or similar unsecured loans, you can usually completely wipe them out in Chapter 7.

6. Wipe out surcharges on your driver’s license, and get your license back.  New Jersey Motor Vehicle surcharges can usually be discharged and wiped out in a successful Chapter 7. Additionally, by filing Chapter 7, you can get your license back, if failure to pay surcharges is the only reason keeping you from getting your license.

7. Discharge legal fees. You can usually wipe out legal fees that you owe to an attorney for services   performed.

8. Stop wage executions on your salary. Chapter 7 automatically prohibits and stops most wage executions.  If a creditor’s wage execution has taken $600 or more out of your salary over the 90 days immediately prior to your Chapter 7 filing date, many times we can get that money back for you. Please make sure to let us know if this applies to you

9. Release liens on frozen bank accounts. A lot of times creditors freeze your bank account and as a result, your checks bounce. If the frozen funds have not been turned over to the creditor by the bank, we can often get your money released back to you.

10. Stop sheriff’s sales of personal property or other property. If the Sheriff has scheduled a sale of some of your personal assets such as a car, household items, or other personal property, that Sheriff’s sale can be stopped by filing Chapter 7.