Oklahoma Bankruptcy Options and Your Assets

Protecting Your Assets in an Oklahoma Bankruptcy

When you file for bankruptcy, the court and the creditors will heavily scrutinize your assets. In exchange for assistance with your debts, either through discharge or reorganization, you must be willing to negotiate with creditors. If you have valuable assets, the bankruptcy system does allow you various means of legally protecting them.

First things first: do not commit bankruptcy fraud. If you make big purchases on credit cards, accumulate cash advances or request large personal loans right before filing for bankruptcy, the court will be suspicious of your spending activity. In addition, if you try to protect your assets by transferring all of them to friends or family members on the eve of your Oklahoma chapter 7 bankruptcy, creditors may attempt to seize these assets.

When you file for bankruptcy, all of your assets and debts become your bankruptcy estate. The value of your bankruptcy estate must be distributed by the trustee to your creditors. However, bankruptcy does allow exemptions. Depending on the value of your estate, you may be able to avoid relinquishing any property to creditors.

Bankruptcies are governed by both state and federal law. The Bankruptcy Code is a federal law, and federal bankruptcy judges oversee the process. However, Oklahoma is permitted to pass its own bankruptcy regulations. In Oklahoma, you are required to use Oklahoma bankruptcy exemptions and federal non-bankruptcy exemptions when valuing your bankruptcy estate. Oklahoma and federal bankruptcy exemptions include:

• The full value of your primary residence unless you also use your primary residence for your business, which would then reduce the exemption to $5,000


• Up to 1 acre of land if you live in a town but up to 160 acres if you live on a farm or ranch


• Cemetery plots


• Engagement rings


• Books and photos


• Clothing


• Home defense guns


• Livestock for family, not business, use


• Medical equipment


• College savings plans


• Furniture, decorations, computers, and other personal property


• Personal injury awards amounting up to $50,000


• Individual Development Accounts


• Food


• Funeral benefits


• War bond payroll savings


• Up to $7,500 in equity in a vehicle


• Various retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs worth up to $1,245,745


• Crime compensation


• Social Security and other disability payments


• Unemployment pay


• Worker’s compensation


• Earned income tax credit


• Farming tools


• Enough seeds to last one harvest


• Business equipment like computers, fax machines, filing cabinets, and more


• 75% of your income earned in the 3 months preceding filing


• Spousal and child support


• Annuities


• Group life insurance proceeds


• Property owned by your LLP or GP business


• And more

This is only a partial list. As you can see, there is an astonishing number of bankruptcy exemptions that may apply to your estate. While your bankruptcy estate may seem fairly valuable after you compare your income with your liabilities, the exemptions can greatly reduce your income. In addition, these exempted properties cannot be seized in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Thus if you are seeking a total discharge of unsecured debts, you will be able to protect your home from seizure. You may also be able to protect your car depending on its worth and the overall value of your estate.

The best way to prepare for bankruptcy is to plan ahead. By securing your assets before the threat of bankruptcy enters your mind, you can protect them down the road. Placing some of your valuable assets like inheritances into a trust fund will transfer ownership out of your hands. Money in a trust fund will not be calculated as part of your estate. In addition, placing money in a trust fund will preserve your funds for the probate process as well.

Free Consultation And Your Assets in Oklahoma Bankruptcy;

If you are considering an Oklahoma bankruptcy keeping your assets is very important. Out attorneys will go through your assets and debts and apply the bankruptcy exemptions so that you don’t lose your home, car, retirement and most other personal property in bankruptcy. Call today for a free consultation.

Oklahoma Bankruptcy Options and Your Assets

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Tulsa Lawyer discusses Debt Solutions

Evaluating Your Debt Solutions Short of an Oklahoma Bankruptcy

If you are struggling to pay your bills, you have likely grown accustomed to constant harassing calls from creditors. You want to pay them off and stop the endless ringing of your phone, but you simply don’t have the money. Your credit score slips lower and lower as the delinquencies pile up. Every month, you find yourself making financial sacrifices or juggling between whether to pay one bill or another. If you have grown tired of fighting your debt, you don’t need to resign yourself to another day of avoiding the phone and mailbox. By choosing the right debt solutions, or bankruptcy you can legally and responsibly address your debt concerns and work toward a brighter future.

First, there’s always the option of paying the past due balances on your bills to become current again, then making timely monthly payments thereafter. However, if you were able to remain current on all of your bills, you wouldn’t have fallen behind in the first place. Thus, you will need to find a debt solution that is more aligned with your budget and goals.

A debt settlement plan is part of a group of debt solutions that allows you to offer a lump sum payment to the creditor in exchange for a cancellation of the debt. You can often negotiate a payment that is 30-40% of the total amount you owe. If you are several months behind and believe that the creditor is likely to sell your debt soon, you may be able to settle for a very low amount. Creditors sell debt for pennies on the dollar, then write off the debt. The creditor may be incentivized to take your low offer if it is higher than what they would get if they sold your debt to a new creditor. The debt will show as settled on your credit report, and the account will be closed. This method requires you to have cash up-front, which many individuals do not have.

A debt-snowball plan allows you to slowly but surely pay off debt over time. You begin by making only the minimum payment on each debt. Any leftover money you have each month is applied to the lowest balance. Once that balance is paid off in full, you roll the leftover money over to the next lowest balance. You continue this until your highest balance is paid. Your leftover money will increase as more debts are paid off, allowing you to allocate more money to paying off the balances each month. Again, this method requires you to have available money on hand. If you cannot pay your minimum payments now, the debt-snowball plan will not be feasible.

A debt management and debt solutions plan is an option for individuals who cannot make their minimum payments. A debt solutions or debt management plan is usually arranged by a credit counselor for a fee. First, the creditor interviews you, obtains information on your income and expenses, and computes the maximum amount you can spend monthly on your debt. On your behalf, the credit counselor then negotiates with the creditors to reduce both your interest rates and monthly payments. You will pay a lump sum to the credit counselor each month, who will then distribute individual payments to the creditors in amounts agreed upon with the creditors and according to a schedule. All accounts included in the plan will be closed. In addition, many creditors have stringent requirements for participating in a plan. For instance, some may not allow you to have any open lines of credit while others will require you to drastically cut down on living expenses to prove you are making progress toward being financially stable and savvy. The debt management plan will likely pay off all of your debts in 3 to 4 years, though you can stretch it out for longer to reduce the monthly payments. The debt solutions or debt management plan will not improve your credit score. In fact, the creditors might not even update your credit report to reflect that you are making monthly payments through the plan.

Free Consultation About Debt Solutions in Oklahoma

All of these options come with their own setbacks. The most significant con is the requirement that you have available funds to pay the bills in some form. If paying even a small amount is an extreme hardship for you, bankruptcy in Oklahoma will likely be your best option. Bankruptcy can assist you with either discharging your debt through a chapter seven or restructuring them into manageable payments in order to wipe your slate clean. An experienced bankruptcy attorney can counsel you on which debt solution works best for you and how to file for bankruptcy. Call us today for a free Oklahoma bankruptcy consultation.

Tulsa Lawyer discusses Debt Solutions

http://tulsabankruptcylawyers.net/tulsa-lawyer-discusses-debt-solutions/