A bankruptcy is a public record and will appear on your credit report. However, they are not published in the newspaper or other publications.
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy will remain on your credit report for 10 years. A Chapter 13 bankruptcy will remain on your credit report for 7 years.
Be wary of websites that promise to fill out the forms for you or to file a bankruptcy for you when you are not meeting with a lawyer approved to practice law in Texas. If something goes wrong in your bankruptcy, you may be on your own.
Bankruptcy is complicated and includes a lot of required forms and strict deadlines. Failure to timely file forms, correctly complete forms, and meet deadlines can result in your bankruptcy being dismissed. When a bankruptcy is dismissed your debts are not discharged and you no longer have bankruptcy protection.
The actual filing of a bankruptcy and sending notice to a creditor who is garnishing your paycheck or who has frozen your bank account will begin the process to end those collection efforts.
Yes, but in order to receive a discharge in your second bankruptcy a certain amount of time must have passed. The time required between filing bankruptcies to receive a discharge typically runs from the date of filing of your previous bankruptcy to the date of the filing of the new bankruptcy. There are exceptions to these rules, but generally:
- The time between successive Chapter 7 bankruptcies is 8 years.
- The time between successive Chapter 13 bankruptcies is 2 years.
- The time between a Chapter 13 followed by a Chapter 7 bankruptcy is 6 years.
- The time between a Chapter 7 followed by a Chapter 13 bankruptcy is 4 years.
If your first bankruptcy was dismissed prior to discharge, you may not have to wait at all depending on your facts.
While it is admirable to want to make payments to your creditors, sending less than your monthly payment to credit cards usually does not help get you out of debt. Most or all of those small payments will be applied to interest and late fees and will not help reduce the principal balance that you owe.
While a bankruptcy will remain on your credit report for 10 years, a bankruptcy will stop the reporting of negative information by your creditors and the negative information will then begin to age and naturally fall off of your credit report in 7-10 years. Depending on what your your credit score was prior to your bankruptcy and the steps you take to help rebuild your credit after bankruptcy, many people see their credit scores bounce back quickly after they get a fresh start through bankruptcy.
No. There seems to be confusion created by articles on the internet. The general rule is that student loans (both public and private) cannot be wiped out in bankruptcy. There are very rare and unique exceptions to this rule that apply to very few people.
