Until recently, I have to admit that I didn't realize how important your credit score is. What woke me up was that I realized that my credit score wasn't so great, and it was costing me thousands of dollars every year. How could that be? Well, I learned that my car insurance was affected by my...
NEW JERSEY HOMEOWNERS - MAYBE YOU CAN STOP WORRYING ABOUT FORECLOSURE. I recently read an article that I felt I needed to share with New Jersey people who are afraid of foreclosure. The article was entitled "Fears of a Foreclosure Crisis Are Waning". The article said "foreclosures are alm...
I am happy to announce that effective immediately, our office is going to help our clients repair their credit and increase their credit scores. It's amazing how important a credit score is these days. The interest rate you pay on your car loan and your mortgage is based on your credit sc...
CAN SOCIAL SECURITY OVERPAYMENTS BE WIPED OUT IN BANKRUPTCY? We all make mistakes, even the people that work for the Social Security Administration. We have had quite a few clients whose only source of income is the monthly social security benefits that they receive. Some of them have been re...
HOW DO I IMPROVE MY CREDIT AFTER FILING FOR BANKRUPTCY? When you have filed and completed a successful bankruptcy, the court gives you a clean financial slate, and the right to begin a fresh financial start. That's great, but many people worry that they will never have a decent credit score a...
BANKRUPTCY WORDS YOU NEED TO KNOW If you are thinking about filing for bankruptcy, it's a good idea to become familiar with some of the common everyday words that are used in bankruptcy law. By learning what these words and phrases mean, you will be a more educated client, and you will have a...
CAN YOU RUN UP YOUR CREDIT CARD BALANCES BEFORE YOU FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY? You have to be very careful about running up a lot of credit card debt before you file for bankruptcy. If you do this, it could be used as evidence against you that you intended to defraud your creditors, and you could b...
ARE YOU AFRAID OF FORECLOSURE IN NEW JERSEY? Is there any homeowner out there these days who is not afraid of mortgage foreclosure? So many people have gotten "deferrals" and "forbearances" on their mortgages for maybe 12 months or even more. It sure is great to live in your house withou...
DO YOU GET OUT OF ALL DEBTS IF YOU DECLARE BANKRUPTCY? This is a very common question we often get from potential clients. Let's face it - one of the primary reasons that people file for bankruptcy is to be legally released from as many debts as possible. If you do it right, the best result ...
YOU GOT SUED IN NEW JERSEY AND YOU LOST. NOW WHAT? This blog focuses on what a creditor can do once they've won the lawsuit against you. So let's assume you owed $10,000 on your Bank of America credit card. You fell behind on your payments, you got sued, and you lost the case. Once you've lost,...
"FREE MONEY" FOR NEW JERSEY HOMEOWNERS - HURRY, HURRY, GET YOUR FREE MONEY Does $325 million sound like a lot of money to you? Let me show you how deceptive that figure might really be. How many homeowners do you think there are in the state of New Jersey? I just looked it up on Google, and ...
BREAKING NEWSFLASH: HELP FOR NEW JERSEY HOMEOWNERS IS ON THE WAY. Many New Jersey homeowners haven't had the ability to make their monthly mortgage payments for 6 months or more. Under normal conditions they would be facing foreclosure, but thanks to Covid related homeowner assistance program...
ARE POSITIVE BANKRUPTCY LAW CHANGES COMING FOR NEW JERSEY RESIDENTS? Get ready - there might be some very positive changes coming to help people that are in debt and trying to decide whether filing for bankruptcy would be a good or a bad decision. Several members of Congress have been activel...
HOW DO SHERIFF'S SALES WORK IN NEW JERSEY? It's got to be a pretty scary time for you if your precious home has been listed for sheriff's sale in New Jersey. You've probably worked for years and years to keep your payments up to date, and now suddenly, due to totally unexpected circumstances ...
CAN CREDITORS TAKE YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY? What happens if you owe $10,000 in credit card debt, you can't afford to make payments on the debt, they sue you, and your only income is social security? Clients whose only income is social security don't have a lot of wiggle room when it co...
CAN SENIORS FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY? As financial challenges are becoming more and more difficult for just about everyone, many senior citizens have found that they simply don't have enough money to be able to live a stress free and debt free retirement. Health care costs and elder care costs h...
I don't know if anyone has ever written a blog on this subject before, but when I woke up at about 3 am this morning, the thought came to me out of the blue that I should write a blog called The Psychology of Bankruptcy. And when I thought about it, I started thinking that far too many people hav...
Often times the secret to success is keeping things simple. Many attorneys will tell you that Chapter 13 is very complex and complicated. I tell my clients, yes, maybe Chapter 13 can be complicated, but guess what, I am usually able to distill the process into a few simple steps, so that their Ch...
7 STEPS TO SUCCESS - MAKING CHAPTER 7 AS EASY AS POSSIBLE The process of filing for bankruptcy can definitely be challenging and complicated. My goal is to simplify the complicated and to make hard stuff easy. So what I am doing here is giving my clients a simple roadmap they can follow to a ...
In my previous blog, I gave you a very short history of how I was experiencing a lot of negative emotional states on a daily basis when I was in my 20's, and how those feelings impacted upon my life. I wrote that blog to let my readers know that I just might have a pretty good idea of how they ar...
Chances are that if you are facing financial challenges, you're not exactly the happiest that you have ever been in your life. To the contrary, the odds are that you are under pretty serious stress, and that you are worried and anxious about your future. In these challenging times, well, welcome ...
I'm Seymour Wasserstrum, New Jersey consumer protection attorney, advocate for the underdogs. I'm creating my YouTube Channel because I've seen far too many people struggling and suffering during these difficult and challenging financial times. People who can't pay their mortgage, their rent, the...
I've been a lawyer since 1973, and although many things have changed over the last 48 years, one thing has remained consistent, it seems that I've always been helping the Underdogs. I wish that back in 1973 I would have started keeping a list of the names of all of the people that I was represent...
I recently had a new client who wanted to wipe out about $50,000 in credit card debt. I told him the best way to do it would be to file a Chapter 7. He doesn't own a house (it's in his wife's name), and he is a gig worker and only makes about $10,000 a year. I figured he had an easy chapter 7 cas...
Lots of people pay lots of money to debt settlement companies. Some people are happy with the services provided by their debt settlement company, while others are unhappy, especially after they do all the math and find out how much of their money has gone to high fees charged by their debt settle...
Seymour Wasserstrum helps people who are facing financial challenges throughout the state of New Jersey. We have five offices conveniently located to serve our clients.
We help people wipe out their bills, save their homes from foreclosure, stop vehicle repossessions, and get a fresh financial start.