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.

What is a Debt Management Plan?

A Debt Management Plan is an informal and flexible approach, the purpose of which is to resolve personal debt problems where the debtor has difficulty in repaying debts as they fall due. In a Debt Management Plan creditors can expect to be repaid in full over a period of time.

The rate at which creditors are paid is based on what the debtor can afford on an ongoing basis. Some Debt Management Plans can last for years and the duration of a Debt Management Plan depends on the debtor’s personal financial circumstances. Should you choose to engage a debt management company to assist in putting a Debt Management Plan together, it can estimate how long the Plan will last, once you have provided the necessary information on your financial and personal circumstances.

Of course you don’t have to use a third party to enter into a Debt Management Plan with your creditors. A person can put one together themselves, offer it to creditors and negotiate with creditors to reach agreement on the plan. Such a person can administer their own Debt Management Plan and deal directly with their creditors on an ongoing basis.

This type of Debt Management Plan is sometimes called a self administered Debt Management Plan or a or a DIY Debt Management Plan. However, most persons who enter a Debt Management Plan do engage the services of a debt management company or they may seek help from one of the organisations which offer free advice or assistance and whose running costs are sometimes usually by creditors. If you decide to use a commercial debt management company to assist you, make sure that you ask them to explain the full range of financial solutions that may be available to you.

Because a Debt Management Plan is an informal process, your creditors cannot prevent you from obtaining further credit while your Plan is up and running. However, it is against the spirit of the plan that you should do this. Creditors who may have agreed to accept your Plan in the first place will almost certainly reject it if they learn that you have broken the spirit of the agreement in this way. This is because when you entered the Plan, you committed to use all of your disposable income to address and repay your pre-existing debts and not to increase your indebtedness any further during the term of your Plan.

All unsecured debts such as loans, credit cards, store cards and bank overdrafts are covered in a Debt Management Plan and you expect to repay all of these debts over time. On the other hand, your secured debts such as your mortgage or any HP agreement you may have, are prioritized in your income and expenditure calculations, so that you do not fall behind on these payments. These secured debts have to be paid in full on an ongoing basis and you cannot fall into arrears with any of them.

The advantages of a Debt Management Plan can be summarized as follows: creditors often prefer Debt Management to any other debt repayment process, other than of course repaying all of your debts fully as they fall due in accordance with the terms and conditions of your original credit agreement with them; you do not necessarily have to release any equity from your property; you will repay all of your debts over time, provided you adhere to the payment plan you have agreed to; your financial details will not be published on the Insolvency Register; you only pay what you can afford and the Debt Management Plan is designed to suit your personal circumstances and needs. Remember however that creditors do not have to accept reduced payments or freeze interest and charges and there is no guarantee that any existing or threatened proceeding will be suspended or withdrawn and if your creditors have incurred any collection costs, they will normally be added to your debt.

If you use a commercial debt management company to administer your Debt Management Plan you will have to pay fees to them. These fees vary somewhat from one company to another. Typically a Debt Management company charges a set up fee equal to your first monthly payment into the Debt Management Plan, which means that creditors receive nothing for the first month. Thereafter, charges are usually a fixed percentage of your monthly payment. The average monthly charge is 15% with a minimum of around £25 per month and a maximum of around £100. As you shop around, you will find that charges may vary.

Entering a Debt Management Plan does negatively affect your credit rating although it may already have been affected if you have already accrued arrears on any of your accounts or if you have a history of missed payments or late payments. Your debt management company negotiates reduced monthly payments to your creditors and this means that you will no longer be making the payments originally agreed. Thus the original contracts into which you entered with your creditors will be broken. Notes of these defaults may and probably will be made on your credit file. The credit reference agencies retain default records for six years.

Because Debt Management is flexible and informal, it is not as rigid as other processes and so the process can react quickly if you encounter a sudden change in your circumstances, for better or for worse. If this happens, you should contact the company administering your Debt Management Plan and inform them of any such changes. They can contact your creditors, communicate any issues that arise from your changed circumstances and propose solutions that satisfy both you and your creditors.

While most people who enter Debt Management are employed they do not necessarily need to be, provided they have a source of income that is more than they require for living expenses. However, people who have recently become unemployed and who are actively seeking employment can consider offering their creditors a short term Debt Management Plan, particularly when they have good prospects of obtaining employment with a reasonable level of disposable income. Even people whose entire income is comprised of benefits can offer Debt Management to their creditors but since their level of disposable income is likely to be low, it may well be that an alternative solution such as bankruptcy or perhaps a Debt Relief Order might be a more suitable and appropriate solution. Other solutions to financial difficulties which should be considered include Individual Voluntary Arrangements or IVAs, Debt Consolidation, Asset Sale & Debt Settlement and Property Remortgage & Debt Settlement. The possibility of financial assistance from a family member or friend should not be overlooked.

Reputable debt management companies offer complete confidentiality and privacy in relation to your DMP. No information about you is disclosed to any outside organizations including your employer. Particular care is taken when making contact with you to ensure that others will not find out about your circumstances. Obviously you need to behave discreetly yourself in your communications with your creditors and with your debt management company to ensure that your employer does not become aware of your Debt Management Plan inadvertently.

Insolvency is not a requirement for entering Debt Management. It may be that your income combined with your assets is sufficient to pay off your debts in full in accordance with the terms of your contracts with your creditors. For example, you might have sufficient equity in your property to pay your debts when your income is taken into account but if you cannot obtain a re-mortgage, you might have to sell your home to realize that equity. Debt Management might provide a means of postponing the sale of your home or giving you some breathing space until such time as you can obtain a remortgage on reasonable terms.

Debt Relief

Debt Relief Blog just for you
 
Hello and Welcome to the new National Debt Relief Blog. Our staff here at National Debt Relief are our biggest resource, so we thought, what better way to share our debt expertise with you, than through a simple blog.

We will be covering all sorts of debt related topics, budgeting tips, daily goings on, etc… in the hope to inform you and keep you entertained. If you have any topics you would like us to blog about, please do not hesitate to give us a shout. We’ll only be too happy to help.

We have a dedicated Debt Management Team and a Long Standing IVA Department. We know all there is to know about these Debt Solutions. We hope you enjoy reading our stories and do leave us a comment if you have anything to say.