Why Bankruptcy is a Better Option Than Debt Settlement

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When it comes to managing overwhelming debt, many individuals may consider debt settlement as a way to negotiate a lower payoff amount with creditors. However, bankruptcy may actually be a better option in many cases. In this post, I will explain why bankruptcy is a better option than debt settlement.

  1. Legal Protection. Bankruptcy is a legal process that provides individuals with protection from creditors and debt collectors. When a person files for bankruptcy, an automatic stay goes into effect, which stops creditors from contacting the individual and pursuing further collection actions. On the other hand, debt settlement does not provide the same level of legal protection and creditors may still be able to pursue collection actions.
  2. Faster Resolution. Debt settlement can take months or even years to negotiate a lower payoff amount with creditors. In contrast, bankruptcy can often provide a faster resolution to debt problems, with most Chapter 7 bankruptcies being complete within a few months.
  3. Wider Debt Relief. Debt settlement typically only addresses unsecured debts, such as credit card bills and medical bills. Bankruptcy, on the other hand, can provide relief for a wider range of debts, including secured debts such as mortgages and car loans, and priority debts such as back taxes and child support.
  4. Better Outcome for Creditors. While debt settlement may seem like a better option for the individual, it may actually have a negative impact on creditors. In many cases, debt settlement companies only negotiate a portion of the debt owed, and creditors may receive less money than they would have in a bankruptcy scenario.
  5. Fresh Start. Bankruptcy provides individuals with a fresh start by discharging most unsecured debts and allowing them to begin rebuilding their financial future. On the other hand, debt settlement may leave a negative mark on a person’s credit report and make it difficult for them to obtain new credit in the future.

In conclusion, bankruptcy is a better option than debt settlement for individuals who are struggling with debt. It provides legal protection, a faster resolution, wider debt relief, a better outcome for creditors, and a fresh start. If you are struggling with debt, consider speaking with a New Jersey bankruptcy attorney to see if bankruptcy is right for you. Book a free telephone consultation here: https://jenniferweil07030.setmore.com/

There’s a Judgment Against Me – What Are My Options?

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Many people face civil judgments for debt collection. Here’s a guide to your options for addressing this problem.

What is a Debt-Collection Judgment?

A debt-collection judgment is basically a court order signed by a judge stating that you owe the plaintiff, who may be the original creditor or a debt collector, a specific sum of money. The judgment may or may not say that you owe continuing interest and/or attorney fees to the plaintiff.

How Do I Know if There’s a Judgment Against Me?

Typically, you would have been served with legal papers – a lawsuit – at some point. You may or may not have chosen to handle the lawsuit somehow, either by contacting the other side’s attorneys yourself or by getting your own attorney. Or maybe you ignored it. If a judgment was entered, you should have received a copy of the judgment itself or some notification that a judgment was entered against you, along with some indication of how much money the judgment was for.

If you were not served with any legal papers, it’s possible that you might have missed them in the mail somehow – some courts allow for service by mail, under certain circumstances – or maybe you’ve moved over the last few years. Try looking on the court’s website to see if you can locate a lawsuit against you. If you find one, make a note of the county in which it was filed, the plaintiff’s name, and the court’s docket number. These pieces of information will come in handy if you need to call an attorney or the court clerk.

If you knew about the lawsuit early on and you settled it with the plaintiff’s law firm, you might be required to make payments on the debt over time. In that case, there should not be a judgment against you, at least not if the debt-collection lawsuit took place in New Jersey. A debt-collection settlement is not the same as a debt-collection judgment in the New Jersey civil court system.

There’s a Judgment Against Me – What Are the Risks?

If there is a debt-collection judgment against you in New Jersey, you face some potential problems. The most likely issues are the following:

  • Wage garnishment: Only a certain percentage of your wages can be garnished, but it might be more than you can afford;
  • Bank levy: This is the most dangerous, in my opinion, because the plaintiff can get up to the full amount of the judgment at one time – meaning that your bank account could be cleared out; and/or
  • Lien on real estate: If you own property in New Jersey, the plaintiff could have a lien placed on it, which means that, when you sell the property, the plaintiff will have to be paid from the sale proceeds.

I Can’t Afford to Pay the Judgment (Or the Settlement) – What Now?

If there is a debt-collection judgment against you and you can’t afford to pay it, you have a few options:

  • Do nothing: Let it get paid through one of the judgment collection methods listed above;
  • Settle it: You can settle a judgment, although it’s not likely to be on great terms – try settling it yourself, or if it’s for a high dollar amount, you might want to pay an attorney to settle it for you;
  • File for bankruptcy: Get a free bankruptcy consultation and tell the attorney as many details about the judgment as possible. Most debt-collection judgments are dischargeable in bankruptcy. Provide information about all of your debts, income, and assets with the bankruptcy attorney and see if you qualify.

If you’d like to discuss your debt situation, book a phone consultation now by scheduling it on my calendar.

How To Rebuild Your Credit After Bankruptcy

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What’s the best way to rebuild my credit after my bankruptcy case is over? Many people are afraid to file for bankruptcy due to the perceived impact on their credit. Truth be told, a lot of people who need bankruptcy already have bad credit and a bankruptcy isn’t going to worsen their credit that much more.

The real reason that people fear credit damage through bankruptcy is that they are afraid of permanent, or semi-permanent, credit damage because a bankruptcy stays on your credit report for ten (10) years. When someone hears that a bankruptcy filing stays on their credit reports for 10 years, they think that the record of their bankruptcy filing is somehow going to outweigh anything good that could happen to their credit after the bankruptcy.

In my experience and in my clients’ experience, bankruptcy does not permanently damage credit. The is an immediate impact to a credit score – a bottoming out, if you will – but if you play your (credit) cards right, there’s nowhere for your credit to go but up after a bankruptcy. There are effective steps that you should take to deliberately improve your credit after bankruptcy.

What You Shouldn’t Do After Bankruptcy

First, you should be aware of some things to avoid after bankruptcy:

  • Don’t overuse new credit cards;
  • Don’t take out business loans you can’t pay;
  • Don’t ignore new credit card offers; and
  • Don’t pay too much in credit card fees.

Believe it or not, there are things that you can do to your credit after bankruptcy that will only make your credit reports look worse, or that will inhibit your ability to rebuild good credit after bankruptcy.

Don’t overuse new credit cards: Most of my clients are pleasantly surprised that they can qualify for new credit card accounts after their bankruptcy case has ended, since they previously believed that they would never qualify for another credit card. But be aware that you don’t want to start charging up your new credit cards to their limit. Instead, only charge a monthly amount that you can easily afford to pay back.

Don’t take out business loans you can’t pay: This is a tough one, because most people want to get on with rebuilding their financial lives as soon as possible after bankruptcy, which includes building their business back to financial health. And it can be hard to know what you might be able to afford to repay. This is where good accounting help or financial advising is invaluable. Ask around for advise from people whose financial judgment you trust; is your business really pulling down the amounts of money that will enable you to repay a business loan? Be a penny-pincher for awhile. Build the business on a shoestring. It’ll give you the opportunity to test the waters and see if your business can stay afloat.

An interesting thing about business loans, or even business credit cards, is that they don’t always report to your personal credit reports. So you might consider business loans to be a net neutral when it comes to your credit. But remember, we are talking about your overall financial health, which your credit reports reflect – if you dig in too deep with business loans that you can’t afford, it’s likely to impact your personal financial health, which is likely to negatively impact your personal credit over time.

Don’t ignore new credit card offers: If you don’t care about rebuilding your credit and you’ve decided that you don’t like banks, then go ahead and ignore the new credit card offers that come your way after bankruptcy – your credit will stagnate. But if you want better credit, you have to work for it, and that means taking out new credit cards.

Don’t pay too much in credit card fees: If you don’t need to pay fees for something, don’t. For many people, annual fees just add on to credit-card debt, making it that much harder to pay.

What You Should Do After Bankruptcy

As you may have figured out by now, the best and fastest way to rebuild a good credit record after bankruptcy is to take out new credit-card accounts. Paying off the full credit-card balance on time each and every month is the safest and most effective way to accomplish improved credit. Only charge the amount that you can easily pay off in full at the end of every month.

After you’ve done this for a few months, pull your credit report from annualcreditreport.com and make sure that this new credit card account – and your monthly payments – are being reported. This is the goal of building new credit: To have positive, in-good-standing accounts consistently reported on your credit reports. If it’s not reporting to your credit, don’t continue to use it and try again with a new account.

Remember, debit card usage will not count as a credit account for credit reporting purposes. It needs to be a credit-card account. You can try a secured card, if that’s the best kind of card account for which you can qualify. Just make sure that you keep enough in the bank account to which the card is linked to pay off the card account in full without overdrawing your bank account.

If you are careful and you pay attention to what you are doing, your credit should improve over time. As you qualify for new and better credit offers, you should take the ones that look best to you (think no, or low, annual fees and higher credit limits). Switch your charging – and your paying off the full balance every month – over to the new account to continue rebuilding your credit. Higher limit cards tend to “look better” on your credit report.

Check Your Income

Obviously, before you take out new credit, you should make sure that you are in a position to be able to afford to pay off any credit card balance in full each and every month. That means you need a source of regular income that can first pay your regular monthly bills – rent, electric, food, etc. – and leave enough money left over to pay your credit card account in full.

Do not put the cart before the horse and get all worried about rebuilding your credit before you have enough income to do so! Worry first about employment and then about credit. Most job fields do not care that you have bad credit before they hire you. There are a few fields where employers do care about bad credit, and it’s highly likely that you’ll know for sure if you are in one of those fields.

If you need to discuss issues with a bankruptcy attorney, schedule a free bankruptcy phone consultation with attorney Jennifer N. Weil through her Setmore page.

5 Tips For A Smooth Bankruptcy Case

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Here are 5 tips for a smooth bankruptcy case that you can implement both before and after you’ve hired a bankruptcy attorney.

Tip #1: Have You Filed Bankruptcy Before?

If you have filed bankruptcy in the past, whether or not you received a discharge, you should immediately tell your attorney about the prior bankruptcy. This is important because it can affect how long you must wait before filing a new bankruptcy case, if you want to receive a discharge in the new case. Prior cases can affect other things, including, but not limited to, the length of time creditor must stop trying to collect debts from you.

If you’ve had a prior bankruptcy filing, your bankruptcy attorney should advise you about whether a new bankruptcy filing is a good idea for you and if so, when you should file the new case.

Tip #2: Don’t Repay Relatives Before Filing

If you are considering filing for bankruptcy and you owe money to relatives, don’t repay them before you file the bankruptcy. Instead, tell your bankruptcy attorney about these kinds of debts and ask them what to do. There are special bankruptcy rules about repaying relatives before bankruptcy and, if you do the wrong thing, the bankruptcy trustee can try and recoup the money you’ve repaid from that relative.

You may be able to easily repay that relative after your bankruptcy is finished, or in the case of a Ch. 13, during the bankruptcy. Ask your bankruptcy attorney for advice first before making any payments to relatives, to avoid any special difficulties such as the trustee wanting to sue your relative to claw back those funds.

Tip #3: Decide Whether To Keep Your Car

Whether to keep your car may be obvious to you, but it’s worth asking your bankruptcy attorney about your options. It is important to know that if you want to keep your car, and you took out a loan for that car, you must keep making all of your car payments in full and on time.

While bankruptcy gives you a break from your debts, you cannot get behind in your car payments when you expect to keep your car. If you’re behind on your car payments during your bankruptcy, then at some point, your car lender will be able to repossess your car.

If you have very high car payments or if your car is too expensive to keep due to repair problems, then discuss with your bankruptcy attorney the timing of getting rid of the car and of getting a replacement, if needed. If you’re doing a Ch. 13 case, you may be able to cram down the car loan closer to the actual value of the car.

Tip #4: Don’t give away or otherwise transfer any property

Especially before filing the bankruptcy, do not give away or transfer any property, such as real estate, a car, money, etc. If you are in doubt about whether you can, or should, transfer something you own out of your name and into someone else’s name, ask a bankruptcy attorney for advice first.

Transferring property to someone else can be a big problem that can prevent you from filing bankruptcy or get you into big trouble in your bankruptcy case. Some people naturally believe that the less they own on filing bankruptcy, the better. While that may be the case to some extent, it is far worse to have transferred something valuable out of your name just so that you didn’t own it at the time your bankruptcy was filed. This can lead to allegations of bankruptcy fraud, which will cause you a lot bigger problems than if you had never made the transfer in the first place.

Tip #5: Don’t Borrow Any More Money

Generally, you should not borrow money soon before filing your bankruptcy case. For most people, this means not using your credit cards anymore. There are detailed nuances to this general rule that you should discuss with your bankruptcy attorney, so be sure to ask for advice if you already have used credit cards recently, or if you feel that you need to do so.

If you need to discuss issues with a bankruptcy attorney, schedule a free phone consultation with attorney Jennifer N. Weil through her Setmore page or by calling (201) 676-0722.

The #1 Best Judgment Protection: Bankruptcy

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The #1 best judgment protection is bankruptcy. If you can qualify for a bankruptcy and you’re considering whether to file a bankruptcy or do debt settlement instead, consider the issue of judgment protection. Does bankruptcy protect me from judgments? Some think that hiring a debt consolidation (aka debt settlement) company provides the same level of protection as a bankruptcy.

But if you believe that a debt consolidation or a debt settlement company can protect you in any way, shape or form from debt collectors and their tactics, you’re wrong. It’s that simple. Bankruptcy can protect you from judgments and from debt collection. How does bankruptcy provide protection from judgment collection?

The Automatic Stay

Bankruptcy protections from debt collection activities come through the automatic stay. The automatic stay has the effect of a court order stopping all attempts to collect a debt from you, the debtor, during the course of your bankruptcy case. This is the biggest, most important difference between bankruptcy and debt settlement.

Bankruptcy Automatic Stay Protection vs. Debt Settlement

Whether you are settling your own debts or you’ve hired someone else to settle your debts, you need to know that no part of the debt-settlement process protects you from any type of debt collection at all. Many people believe that if they’ve hired an attorney to settle their debts, or if the debt settlement company assigns an attorney to their case, that they will get some type of protection from debt collection activities such as lawsuits, wage garnishments, or bank levy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason that you don’t get any protection from debt collection through debt settlement is simply because the debt collector doesn’t have to stop trying to collect. There’s nothing to stop them.

Debt Settlement’s False Security

Federal law does require debt collectors (but not original creditors) to stop calling you on the phone if you’ve told them that you have an attorney, which gives people a false sense of security. You may falsely believe that, because the debt collector is no longer calling you, they won’t sue you or try to collect on an existing judgment. Again, it’s not true – you can be sued, you can have your wages garnished, and your bank account can be levied.

To be sure, debt collection law firms often will verbally agree to temporarily suspend collection activity while your attorney is discussing settlement with them, but there is no requirement that they do so. If settlement talks fall apart, debt collection activity will resume.

Limits Of The Automatic Stay

It’s important to know that the bankruptcy automatic stay has limits. First of all, the automatic stay only last as long as your bankruptcy case lasts. If you receive a bankruptcy discharge of your debts, you will be protected from collection on the discharged debts by the discharge order itself. The bankruptcy discharge takes the form of a court order that creditors and debt collectors must obey.

Further limits of the bankruptcy automatic stay can result from multiple bankruptcy filings within a short period of time. For example, if you filed a bankruptcy case that was dismissed and then you file another bankruptcy case within a year, your automatic stay will be limited to 30 days only, unless a judge grants your formal, written request to extend the stay. And it’s possible to have no automatic stay at all if you have filed too many bankruptcy cases in a year.

If you have questions about judgment protection, debt settlement, debt consolidation, or the bankruptcy automatic stay, call to schedule a free bankruptcy phone consultation with attorney Jennifer Weil at (201) 676-0722, or go to my Setmore page.

How To Get Rid Of Your Car In Bankruptcy

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Table of Contents

You might want to know how to get rid of your car in bankruptcy. But if you really want to know how to keep your car through your bankruptcy case, that was the subject of an earlier post (linked above).

Not everyone wants to keep their car through bankruptcy. Sometimes, the monthly car payment is too high, or the car has developed problems that require expensive repairs in order to keep it in good running order. And sometimes you just decide that you no longer need the car at all.

Especially in northern New Jersey, not everyone needs a car for work. Many people work in NYC or within the urban area not far from where they live, such as within Jersey City or Newark, and they take public transportation. It happens that people often make the transition from having to drive to work – say, to a more suburban area of New Jersey – to being able to take public transportation to get there.

Car Loans Are Dischargeable In Bankruptcy

First, you should know that your car loan is dischargeable in bankruptcy, just like credit card debt. Decide whether you need a car after bankruptcy. This decision will help guide your next actions.

If You Need Another Car

While you are in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, your car cannot be repossessed due to the automatic stay, although the automatic stay can end as to your car a little earlier than the end of your bankruptcy case, under certain circumstances. If you need a car but you want to get a different car from the one you have now, you will need to wait until your bankruptcy is over before you can get a new car. Because you need a car, you may want to continue making your current car loan payments until you are certain that you can get another car.

Getting another car can be as simple as waiting until after the end of your Chapter 7 case. Or it can be as complicated as getting permission to get a new car loan during your Chapter 13 plan. Your exact strategy will depend on the specific issues in your case.

If You Don’t Need Another Car

Planning is a lot easier if you don’t need to get another car at all. In this case, you simply stop paying on the car loan. You should stop paying on the car loan once you have decided that you no longer need the car and once you have cleaned your personal belongings out of it.

You can stop paying on the car before your bankruptcy, during your bankruptcy, or after the bankruptcy. In each of those cases, your bankruptcy will take care of discharging the car loan, if you are filing a Chapter 7. If you are filing a Chapter 13, you may be repaying some or all of the car loan through your bankruptcy case, since Chapter 13 involves some level of repayment.

You Can Get A Car Loan After Bankruptcy

So many people believe that they “can’t buy anything,” or that they won’t be able to take out a new loan after bankruptcy. This isn’t true. First – of course you can buy things after bankruptcy. There’s nothing to stop you from saving up enough to pay cash for a used car after bankruptcy, except for your ability to earn enough cash to save up, which is a challenge for many.

Second, you can get a car loan after bankruptcy. Keep in mind that the loan terms won’t be the best terms – you did just come out of a bankruptcy, after all – but don’t be surprised if a car dealership is ready to throw a new car loan contract at you the same day that your bankruptcy case ends. Writing up new car loans is how car dealerships make their money.

If you’ve got questions about how to get rid of your car loan in bankruptcy, or if you need to use bankruptcy to get out of a bad car loan, call (201) 676-0722 to schedule a free telephone consultation with attorney Jennifer Weil, or go to my Setmore page.

A Vaccine Won’t End This Recession

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You need to know where you stand in this economy. You need a reasonable
projection of whether you might have a good job 6 to 12 months from now.
Among the periodic faux-happy jobs reports (“Unemployment isn’t as bad this
month as it was last month!”) and the near-daily upward drive of the stock
market, followed by the announcement that we’ll have a vaccine by Election Day,
you can be forgiven for believing that a recovery – and a stable job – is just
around the corner.

We are in a recession that the pandemic kicked off. But this recession’s
underpinnings have been building for years. Even before the pandemic, we had a
middle-class jobs and wages problem. The number of stable middle-class jobs
has been dropping for years. Even those with seemingly stable middle-class jobs
had trouble covering all of their living expenses in addition to saving for
retirement in an job market that offers fewer and fewer pensions for retired
people. Wages haven’t kept pace with inflation for the past 40 years.

But up until right before the pandemic, we’ve all been told that the U.S. economy
is doing great – and that the performance of our stock market proves it. Trouble
is, the average working person in the U.S. hasn’t been doing “great,” financially
speaking, at least not since the 2008 recession. And the performance of the
stock market has not been linked with the financial health of most working
people for many years.

Most people are tied to the stock market only through their retirement accounts,
but many don’t have enough put away in those accounts for adequate retirement
savings. And they’re often dipping into those retirement accounts in order to pay
current expenses, perpetually paying back one or two 401(k) loans at time. How
does great stock market performance help these people? It doesn’t.

It’s tempting to believe that a COVID vaccine will bring jobs back and that it will
end the recession. But that’s not likely. The hardest hit industries will need time to
rebuild. Not all jobs will come back and those that do may come back with pay
cuts.

For example, jobs in the travel industry are in danger, obviously. But other
industries that feed into areas of the travel industry will suffer, too. Food suppliers
that provide snacks and meals to the airlines. Manufacturers and distributors of
airline uniforms. Restaurants and stores inside the airports and all the different
distributors and manufacturers that supply those restaurants and stores. All of
these industries will continue to suffer for some time before they are able to
recover. And the longer the economic distress lasts, the more widespread the
distress becomes and the harder and longer the recovery will be.

Government could help. It could implement jobs programs such as infrastructure
and training programs that have job matching services, after helping to
implement strong unemployment compensation systems such as those that have
allowed European workers to weather the COVID-19 storm. Thus far, we have
seen no sign of any plans for relief beyond the short-lived CARES Act.

Instead, we are facing a steep slide into economic despair, under a government
refusing to work toward a lasting economic recovery, beyond lying about a
vaccine being available by election day. That’s this administration’s entire
economic recovery plan: A COVID vaccine. But jobs will not come right back as
soon as a vaccine is available. Sure, a few jobs will return, but not all, or even
most of them.

A vaccine won’t end this recession. But our government won’t tell you this. It
wants you to be happy about the stock market and believe that a stock-market
rise signals a strong economy, but that’s foolish. Look around with clear eyes and
know where you stand in this economy.

How New Jersey Debt-Collection Judgments Work

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If you’ve been sued for credit-card debt in New Jersey and you’re trying to decide what to do, you will need to know how New Jersey debt-collection judgments work.

Pay Attention To The Lawsuit Timeline

If you’ve been sued for debt collection in New Jersey, you should pay close attention to the timeline. Look closely at the papers you received – the first papers, the ones that start a lawsuit, are the summons and the complaint. The summons should be on the front. It may look like a mostly pre-printed form that has been filled in here and there. In some kinds of lawsuits, you will see a date somewhere in the middle of that form that is the date your written answer is due. In other kinds of lawsuits, there won’t be a date in the middle of the summons.

Which Part Of The Court Is The Lawsuit In?

The two main kinds of debt-collection lawsuits in New Jersey are those that are filed in Special Civil Part and those that are not. Ways to tell the difference is that in Special Civil Part lawsuits: 1) The plaintiff will be seeking $15,000 or less (it could be a little more with attorney fees added on); 2) The docket number will have “DC” in it; 3) The upper right-hand corner of the complaint will have “Special Civil Part” in the name of the court.

Special Civil Part vs. Law Division

Most credit-card debt-collection lawsuits that are not in Special Civil Part are situated in regular Law Division. You’ll need to look closely at the papers you receive, since the Special Civil Part lawsuits will say “Law Division” on them, but if they also say “Special Civil Part,” that means they’re not in the regular Law Division. Regular Law Division lawsuits seek to collect more than $15,000 and their docket numbers have “L” in them instead of “DC”.

Small Claims Part

Note that yet another category of lawsuit in this area could be small claims lawsuits, which have “SC” in the docket number, but this type isn’t typically used for credit-card debt collection. Small claims lawsuits typically less than $3,000 in dispute, most often involving parties who are not represented by attorneys.

Why It Matters Which Part The Lawsuit Is In

The reason it’s important to distinguish Special Civil Part collection lawsuits from regular Law Division lawsuits is that the procedure for obtaining a judgment against the defendant is a little different for each type of lawsuit.

Service Of Special Civil Part Lawsuits

As mentioned above, the first thing that happens in Special Civil Part lawsuits is that each defendant receives service of the Summons and the Complaint, usually by mail from the courthouse. The documents are sent via both certified mail, return receipt requested and regular mail. If both of these pieces of mail are returned to the court, service was not good. If at least one of them does not get returned, the court deems that as good service.

So if you’re trying to dodge service, it doesn’t do you any good to ignore the certified mail that’s waiting for you at the post office.

What Happens If You Don’t Respond

You’ll get 35 days – until the date listed on the front middle portion of the Summons – to file your written answer to the court along with proper payment of the filing fee and to send a copy to the other side. If you don’t file the answer by the answer date, the Special Civil Part automatically “enters default” against you. All this means is that the court is recognizing that you did not file a timely answer.

How New Jersey Debt-Collection Judgments Work

Then, after the court enters default against you, the other side (the plaintiff) can file a request or a motion to enter judgment against you for the full amount of money that they are seeking to collect.

You might receive a copy of this request or motion or you might not, depending on circumstances. The timing here is almost entirely dependent on the efficiency of the attorney representing the plaintiff. Some attorneys get these papers in to the court on the first possible date and some attorneys let the case lapse for 6 months or more. Most fall somewhere in between. It can help to know the practices of the various attorneys’ offices.

What If Nothing Happens?

If the case lapses for 6 months with no judgment, the court will administratively dismiss the case. That doesn’t mean you win. Administrative dismissal only means the court wants to get the case off its active rolls as quickly as possible. The other side can always file a motion to revive the case.

How New Jersey Debt-Collection Judgments Get Collected

Once the other side gets its judgment, they can start filing motions with the court to allow them to collect on the judgment, usually via wage garnishment or bank levy.

How Law Division Differs

If the case is in regular Law Division, the procedure is similar, but not exactly the same. The main difference is that the other side must file papers with the court asking it to enter default against you, declaring that you did not timely file a written answer.

Then, once they get their entry of default, the rest of the procedure is the same – the other side files papers requesting a judgment against you. And once the judgment is entered, they can start trying to collect.

What To Do When You Get A Lawsuit

Once you receive a lawsuit, you should start paying close attention to the timeline outlined above. Seek attorney help as soon as possible, either to help you file a written answer and continue defending against the lawsuit, or to settle it, or maybe even both. You’ll need to provide an attorney with a full copy of the papers and tell them everything you think you might know about the underlying facts of the lawsuit.

If you’ve been sued in New Jersey and you need help, call (201) 676-0722 to schedule a free telephone consultation with attorney Jennifer Weil, or go to my Setmore page.

Your Bankruptcy Consultation: The 3 Main Topics

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What happens at a bankruptcy consultation? The answer to this question is different depending on who the bankruptcy consultation is with, whether the consultation is in person or by phone, and what systems the bankruptcy attorney has set up for the consultation. I can give you some general insight as well as information about how I conduct my own bankruptcy consultations.

Consultation Fees

Many, but not all, bankruptcy attorneys do some sort of free consultation. The attorneys who don’t do free consultations aren’t necessarily more expensive; often, those attorneys feel that they are giving more value during the consultation phase, so they should charge a fee. Or they feel that they shouldn’t give away their time. There may be an incentive built into the consultation fee in the sense that the attorney may credit such a fee against the entire bankruptcy attorney fee if you hire them.

As of yet, I don’t charge bankruptcy consultation fees for the most part for a couple of reasons: First, I do all my bankruptcy consultations over a relatively short phone call and not in person. In-person consultations take up far more of my time and I always charge for those. This doesn’t mean that I do all my phone consultations for free. I may charge a small fee for other types of consultations, such as student-loan consultations, since I’m providing a lot of value during those sessions.

Second, I see the primary purpose of the bankruptcy phone consultation as determining whether your case is one that I am able to take. I ask enough questions to enable me to determine whether the case is one that I have the time for and whether it is of the type that I want to take. For example, if your primary reason for calling is to get help with keeping your home through a mortgage foreclosure, I’m probably not the lawyer for you, since I generally don’t like to take those cases. But I may have a good lawyer referral or two for you!

Discussing Your Situation

The facts of your particular financial situation will come up during the bankruptcy consultation. A variety of issues are relevant to your financial situation and to a potential bankruptcy case, the most basic of which are how much money you make and what kind of debts you would like to have discharged in bankruptcy.

Not by any stretch of the imagination are these the only two issues that will come into play in your bankruptcy case, but they are a good place to start. You should be psychologically prepared to answer all sorts of questions about your financial affairs that would be inappropriate in a social setting. Think about what you own that might have any resale value, how you incurred your debts, whether you are or have been involved in a business of any kind and with whom, whether your spouse has anything to say about you filing for bankruptcy, etc.

All the different factors that could possibly come into play regarding your financial situation are too numerous and varied to list here. Just remember that anything and everything impacting your overall financial situation is potentially relevant and don’t forget to bring it up with the bankruptcy attorney at some point.

Eligibility For Bankruptcy

One topic that’s relevant to every bankruptcy consultation is your eligibility for bankruptcy, which also ties into the question of which chapter you might file.

Sometimes, your financial goals might dictate which chapter you should file, such as saving a home from foreclosure, for example. But there’s also the question of which chapter you are eligible to file, if any.

During the bankruptcy consultation, the attorney might unearth information showing that you aren’t eligible for the chapter you had hoped to file, or that a different chapter of bankruptcy would be better for your situation. Or they might find that bankruptcy is a bad idea for you altogether.

If your gross (before tax) income is close to the line of eligibility, the attorney may want to run the means test for you. Running the means test is not simple or quick and you should expect to pay a fee for this process. In my practice, I roll this fee into the bankruptcy, if the client hires me to file their case.

Call to schedule a free telephone bankruptcy consultation with attorney Jennifer Weil at (201) 676-0722.

How To Keep Your Car Through Bankruptcy

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This focus of this post is how to keep your car through your bankruptcy. It’s based on my experience as a bankruptcy lawyer, from what I’ve seen happen in my clients’ cases over time. I’ve helped many people successfully keep their financed or leased cars through bankruptcy and beyond. And I’ve seen what happens when people don’t take the steps required to keep their car through bankruptcy.

If you follow the right steps, then you will have the ability to keep your financed or leased car through bankruptcy and thereafter.

Truth is, if you are making all of your car payments in full and on time, you can keep your car through the bankruptcy.

But there’s a trick to it. If your lender has been lenient, letting you make payments late by telling you it’s OK with them, they will not be OK with late payments once your bankruptcy is filed. Lenders become more strict when their customer has filed for bankruptcy. They will want their full payments on time each month, even if before they’d said that late payments were OK.

What happens if your payments are not in full and/or on time every month? Can the lender repossess? Once you are out of bankruptcy, yes – the lender can repossess your car. If you’ve been chronically late with payments, or even if you were late only one month, and you didn’t get all caught up before filing bankruptcy, you’ll face having your car repossessed.

Remember, a car loan is a type of secured debt. This means that if you don’t make your car payments in full and on time, the lender can take the car back. The same is true of a leased car. In fact, repossession may be the lender’s only remedy after you have taken the car loan through the bankruptcy.

The first lesson here is that if you haven’t been strictly making your full car payment on time every month, now’s the time to catch up completely – before your bankruptcy case gets filed. If you don’t, you might be looking at repossession after the bankruptcy is over with.

A second lesson in all this is that if you are having trouble keeping up with your car payments, now is a good time to take a long, hard look at whether this particular car loan is a good idea for you to keep dealing with. Bankruptcy will provide an opportunity to discharge your car loan. If the payments are just too much, or if the car keeps having problems, bankruptcy can allow you to get rid of the car and its loan and, once your case is finished, to pick up a different car, if you need one.

How to keep your car through bankruptcy is not such a mystery. And it isn’t difficult, either. Successfully keeping your car through your bankruptcy case takes a little planning and attention to detail before you file the bankruptcy case.

Mapping out your bankruptcy before you file is arguably the most important part of filing for bankruptcy, because it is the best way to ensure that your bankruptcy case will go smoothly. Ideally, you should never be in a rush to file a bankruptcy case, because that’s when important details get lost, like catching up on your car payments so that you don’t face losing that car after your bankruptcy case is over.

Game plan your personal strategy to keep – or to get rid of – your car through your bankruptcy. Call (201) 676-0722 to schedule a phone appointment to discuss it with attorney Jennifer Weil.