Credit Card Debt Elimination,

For Credit Card Debt Elimination, You Can Use A Debt Reduction/Negotiation
 
It is a good option to use a debt reduction or debt elimination company to eliminate your credit card debt.
The methods that these companies uses provides you with greater savings than traditional non profit debt consolidation programs.

This is because instead of negotiating only interest rates, the company negotiates reductions in the balances owed. It is not uncommon for small businesses or consumers to save a lot of money on their debts. And, most people who enter this program are free from their debts within a relatively short period of time.

If you feel that this program may help you, we recommend that you get a free and confidential debt elimination plan.

Thinking About Filing Bankruptcy?

Thinking About Filing Chapter 11 Business Bankruptcy?

We recommend that you get free commercial debt consolidation advice to restructure your company's business debts. 

Federal bankruptcy laws govern how companies go out of business or recover from crippling debt. A bankrupt company, the "debtor," might use Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code to "reorganize" its business and try to become profitable again. Management continues to run the day-to-day business operations but all significant business decisions must be approved by a bankruptcy court. 

Under Chapter 7, the company stops all operations and goes completely out of business. A trustee is appointed to "liquidate" (sell) the company's assets and the money is used to pay off the debt, which may include debts to creditors and investors. 

In the commercial debt counseling program, you are in control. Your assets such as inventory, bank accounts, and equipment are protected from day one. You decide how much you can afford on a monthly basis to put toward your creditors instead of a court-appointed trustee. Creditors are prioritized and critical suppliers are kept providing the materials that you need to keep your doors open and payments and reductions are negotiated with the others. 

We recommend that you get a free and expert commercial debt counseling to restructure your company's business debts.

FREE Debt Reduction Plan,

Debt negotiation is being used by thousands of people like you to honorably pay back an agreed-to, reduced amount to creditors. Debt negotiation is designed to help you with your debts in a shorter period of time than consumer credit counseling plans or just making minimum payments. You can get a no-obligation FREE Custom Debt Reduction Plan from CuraDebt so you can find out how debt negotiation could help with a debt solution!

Debt Consolidation, Debt Negotiation, or Debt Settlement Help?
Get a free, no-obligation evaluation from a consumer recommended company, CuraDebt.
CuraDebt is a proud member of the Chamber of Commerce, RatePoint, D&B, TASC, IAPDA and has been rated as the #1 Debt Relief Company in the USA for 2 years running. See details on the website.

What Happens After Bankruptcy?

Our previous article was entitled ‘How to go Bankrupt’. This article looks at the aftermath of becoming bankrupt. After the court makes a Bankruptcy Order against a debtor, the Official Receiver immediately takes over the responsibility for administering the bankruptcy including the task of protecting the bankrupt’s assets. The Official Receiver is a civil servant in The Insolvency Service and is an officer of the court and acts as the bankrupt’s trustee unless the court appoints an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) to take that role.

The trustee in bankruptcy is responsible for looking after the financial affairs of the bankrupt for the period before and during the term of the bankruptcy and must report to the court any matters which indicate that the bankrupt may have committed criminal offences in connection with the bankruptcy. For more information regarding the bankrupt’s dealings with the Official Receiver in England and Wales, look up The Insolvency

Service website at www.curadebt.com/insolvency and read the downloadable publication ‘What happens when you are interviewed by the Official Receiver? For Northern Ireland look up the website of The Insolvency Service of Northern Ireland www.curadebt.com/freeconsultation

Bankruptcy imposes certain mandatory duties on the bankrupt. To begin with you must provide information to the Official Receiver about your financial affairs as soon as possible after the Bankruptcy Order is made and you may also have to attend an interview at the OR’s office at a later date.

You must collect and hand over to the Official Receiver all your account books, records, bank statements, insurance policies and other papers relating to your assets and debts. If you receive any assets or any increases in income during the term of your bankruptcy, you must tell your trustee as soon as possible. You must stop using your bank and building society accounts, credit cards and similar accounts straight away. You must not get credit of £500 or more from any person without first telling them that you are a bankrupt. You must not make any payments to your creditors for money that you owed before the Bankruptcy Order was made.

There are sanctions for not co-operating with your trustee and you could be arrested. Generally you will be automatically freed from bankruptcy (discharged) after a maximum of twelve months. Of course if the court should annul (cancel) your Bankruptcy Order at any time, you will become automatically free from bankruptcy; this would normally happen where your debts and the fees and expenses of your bankruptcy have been paid in full or where the Bankruptcy Order should not have been made in the first place.

However, in some cases your discharge from bankruptcy could be suspended (postponed). For further information in England and Wales, look up The Insolvency Service website at www.nationaldebtreliefreview.com/insolvency and read the downloadable publication ‘When will my bankruptcy end?’ For Northern Ireland look up the website of The Insolvency Service of Northern Ireland www.detini.gov.uk

Dealing with the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy

The Official Receiver is a civil servant in The Insolvency Service and is an officer of the court and acts as the bankrupt’s trustee unless the court appoints an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) to take that role. Once a Bankruptcy Order is made against you, the court notifies the Official Receiver who immediately takes over the responsibility for administering your bankruptcy including the tasks of protecting your assets and investigating the causes of your bankruptcy.

As a bankrupt, you have a duty to comply with the Official Receiver’s request to provide information about your financial affairs, including attending for interview as and when asked. You can obtain more information about your duties from your local Official Receiver’s office or from the website of The Insolvency Service www.curadebt.com/insolvency For Northern Ireland look up the website of The Insolvency Service of Northern Ireland www.curadebt.com

The Official Receiver’s staff will contact you immediately if they know that action is urgently needed in relation to your assets. Otherwise they will contact you within two days of receiving the Bankruptcy Order. Usually they will arrange an appointment for you to attend the Official Receiver’s office for interview, normally on a date that is convenient for you and for them. Alternatively the Official Receiver may suggest a telephone interview in circumstances where you have presented your own bankruptcy petition, you have not recently traded, you

have not previously been made bankrupt and where a telephone number for you is available. If you are offered a telephone interview but would prefer to be interviewed in person, you should tell the Official Receiver. Whether your interview is in person or by telephone, you will receive a letter from the Official Receiver setting out what is required of you and you may be required to complete a questionnaire.

If you have presented your own bankruptcy petition, you may be interviewed by the Official Receiver at court or at the Official Receiver’s office, directly following the making of the Bankruptcy Order.

Before the interview with the Official Receiver, you should prepare thoroughly. Start by telephoning to confirm the appointment; inform the Official Receiver by telephone if there are any matters that need to be sorted out urgently or if you need more time to collect paperwork or accounting records requested by the

Official Receiver; tell the Official Receiver if you need to rearrange the appointment; advise them if you have any infirmity or disability or other difficulty which may require special facilities during the interview. Fill in the questionnaire, if you have been asked to complete one, making a note of any points you do not understand. Collect all financial records, paperwork and any other information you will need for the interview, including accounting records, letters, statements, bank records, HP agreements and credit card statements. If you are having a telephone interview, you will be required to return the completed questionnaire by a fixed date. If you are to be interviewed in person, make sure that you bring the completed questionnaire with you together with all the requested paperwork and information to the interview location.

It is important that you co-operate fully with the Official Receiver and his or her staff. Failure to do so could mean a court appearance for questioning and could even be arrested for failing to co-operate.

An interview in person may take two to three hours. Your questionnaire will be checked by an examiner, a member of the Official Receiver’s staff, who will go into the details of your assets and debts and the facts and circumstances that led to your insolvency. You should hand over all your financial records and papers for examination and recording by the Official Receiver, who will retain them. You should avail of the opportunity to ask any questions you have about the proceedings or your case, when at the Official Receiver’s office.

A telephone interview will usually last at least half an hour. The examiner telephones you at the agreed date and time, checks with you the information you have provided in the questionnaire (if you have been asked to provide one), asks for any necessary additional information about your assets and debts, questions you about the facts and circumstances that led to your insolvency, deals with any queries you may have about the proceedings or your case and tells you if you need to supply any further information relating to your affairs.

Occasionally, a second interview may be necessary if the examiner needs more time to complete enquiries into your affairs or if you cannot or do not provide all the financial records requested or needed by the Official Receiver, or if the examiner needs more details of your assets, debts and financial affairs or if you do not turn up for any appointment.

After the interview the Official Receiver checks the information you have provided and issues a report to your creditors within twelve weeks of the date the Bankruptcy Order was made, setting out your assets and debts. If you have material assets the Official Receiver may seek the appointment of an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) to act as trustee and deal with the realization and distribution of your assets. If an IP is appointed as trustee you will need to help the IP to deal with your affairs by tendering your full co-operation. The complexity of your case determines how long the process lasts. If you have provided all the required information and there are no problems encountered in dealing with your assets the process can be over relatively shortly.

Your bankruptcy may be over in twelve months or less, if the Official Receiver concludes his or her enquiries and files a notice in court. You may then be discharged from your bankruptcy even though the trustee may be continuing to deal with your assets for several years after your discharge. You may also be subject to an Income Payments Order or an Income Payments Agreement even after your discharge and up to three years from when the Bankruptcy Order was made.

If you fail to co-operate with the Official Receiver, or with your trustee in bankruptcy or if you are to blame in some way for your bankruptcy or your conduct has been dishonest you may be subject to a bankruptcy restrictions order. In our next article, we will look at the problems that the Official Receiver and/or the trustee encounter with bankrupts who are to blame for their own bankruptcy, who withhold co-operation or who are dishonest and we will look at the consequences of such behavior for such bankrupts.       

Annulment of Bankruptcy

In the world of personal insolvency the annulment procedure applies to bankruptcy only. Only the court has the power to order the annulment or cancellation of a bankruptcy order that has already been made.

Annulment releases the bankrupt from the restrictions placed on him or her by insolvency law and renders him or her no longer bankrupt with immediate effect. Annulment can be sought at any time, even after the bankrupt has received discharge from bankruptcy.

Why would a bankruptcy order be annulled? There are three principal reasons chief of which is that there was a valid reason why the bankruptcy order ought not to have been made in the first place. The second reason is that the debts and expenses of the bankruptcy have either been paid in full or secured to the satisfaction of the court. The third reason is that the bankrupt has with the approval of creditors entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) or into a Fast-track Voluntary Arrangement (FTVA).

Generally the bankrupt (or representative) must apply to the court for an annulment of the bankruptcy order. One exception is where the petitioning creditor’s solicitor makes the application in circumstances where their client failed to notify them that the debt had been paid in full prior to the bankruptcy. The court then sets a date for the hearing.

Visit the website of The Insolvency Service Website for a full description of the process of annulment of a bankruptcy order and find the section entitled Annulments, Rescissions and Recalls.

Qualifying for a Debt Relief Order

It is relatively easy to determine if you are eligible to apply for a Debt Relief Order. First of all you must be currently resident in England or Wales or, at any time in the last three years, have been resident or carrying out business in England or Wales. A Debt Relief Order is an informal insolvency process that has been designed specifically for people who are unable to pay their debts which in total must not exceed £15,000. To apply for a Debt Relief Order there are other conditions you must fulfill.

The first condition is that you have no assets. What this means in practice is that your total gross assets must not exceed £300 apart from a vehicle necessary for travelling to your work or for your domestic needs and which may have a value of up to £1,000. Your surplus income, i.e. what you are left with when you have paid your normal living expenses, must not exceed £50 per month. There must be no other access to debt relief open to you and there must be no prospect of your financial situation improving.

A Debt Relief Order is not an appropriate situation for you if you have assets or if there is a possibility of an improvement in your financial circumstances.

If you have already been subject to a Debt Relief Order within the last six years, then you are ineligible to apply for another one.

You are also ineligible to apply for a Debt Relief Order if you currently involved in another formal insolvency procedure such as bankruptcy, an individual voluntary arrangement, a bankruptcy restrictions order or undertaking, a debt relief restrictions order or undertaking or an interim order. You are also ineligible for a

Debt Relief Order if you are currently petitioning for bankruptcy (unless the court has referred you to the Debt Relief Order procedure as a more suitable method of debt relief) or if a creditor is currently petitioning for your bankruptcy (unless that creditor has given you permission to apply for a Debt Relief Order.

If you believe you are eligible for a Debt Relief Order, then you must seek advice from a debt advisor, who will help you to apply to The Insolvency Service which together with skilled debt advisers, called approved intermediaries, run the system of Debt Relief Orders. You cannot apply for a Debt Relief Order without the assistance of an approved intermediary. The cost of a Debt Relief Order is £90 which can be paid upfront immediately or if you cannot afford to pay immediately, can be paid over a maximum of a six months period. Once the fee is paid in full, the official receiver will consider your application.

Once the Debt Relief Order is granted, your creditors cannot take any action against you for repayment without the permission of the court. After twelve months, your debts, as listed in the Debt Relief Order, are discharged, leaving you free of those debts forever.

While in a Debt Relief Order you are subject to certain restrictions and of course there are certain debts that cannot be entered into a Debt Relief Order. As well as that, details of your Debt Relief Order are put up on the website of The Insolvency Service and are removed three months after your Debt Relief Order has ended.