If you talk to any experienced Chicago bankruptcy lawyer, the first step that he or she will tell you to take when attempting to solve your debt problems is to evaluate your situation. There are a number of yes/no questions that you can answer to figure out the extent of your debt situation.
First of all, you should look at whether or not you have one or more bills that don’t pay each month. Also, have you maxed out all of your credit cards? Are you making only the minimum monthly payments on your credit cards, and do you use one credit card to pay another? If you are, that is definitely a major problem.
Moreover, have you taken out a debt consolidation loan or borrowed money to pay for daily expenses? Have you bounced any checks, or have any accounts been closed by the creditor? If you have responded “yes” to any one of these questions, you are most certainly on a path that will probably end in fiscal depression. That said, if you answered “yes” to at least three or more questions, you might want to consider filing a bankruptcy petition.
There was a time when there was a stigma associated with filing bankruptcy; however, if you are eventually going to end up in bankruptcy despite your best efforts to hold off the inevitable, you are better off filing earlier rather than later. This is true because your credit score will improve much faster if you file prior to actually damaging your score with a bunch of late payments, no pays, collection accounts, judgments and liens.
To receive a professional assessment of your debt situation from a knowledgeable Chicago bankruptcy lawyer, please visit our ‘Contact Us’ page.
