Don’t wait until the last minute before the foreclosure sale to file for bankruptcy!
When your home is up for foreclosure, you need to be proactive if you want to stop the foreclosure and save your house. Contact Texas Bankruptcy Lawyer R.J.Atkinson for a free bankruptcy evaluation the moment you receive a notice of foreclosure. If you contact our office early on instead of waiting until the last minute before the foreclosure sale, you will have more time to weigh all of your options and alleviate a great deal of stress should you decide to file for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. You will also have more time to prepare your bankruptcy case.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy can stop foreclosure and may save your Texas home.
If you are like most Texas homeowners, when you purchased your home and signed on the doted line for the mortgage, you probably never thought that a foreclosure could ever happen to you. The last thing on people’s minds at a real estate closing is loosing their home, or the prospect of being foreclosed on. Whether you have fallen behind on mortgage payments, property taxes, or homeowner’s association dues, if you are facing foreclosure and risk loosing your home, you should act quickly.
Before the latest changes to the Bankruptcy Code , if you were facing foreclosure and were going to file Chapter 13 Bankruptcy to stop the foreclosure, you could simply file your case the very morning of the sale. You could just file the initial petition which was about 2-3 pages without the additional paperwork and stop the foreclosure. If there were problems with the filing, or the information on the schedules was inaccurate, then you could simply amend the documents accordingly and file the remainder of the paperwork days, weeks or sometimes even a month later, and still stop the foreclosure. This is not the case anymore. Under the current law, the automatic stay has certain limitations for previous filers and there are pre filing requirements which actually prevent you from filing for bankruptcy moments before the foreclosure sale. These pre-filing requirements can present irreparable consequences for those people who wait to the last day or the last minute before the sale to stop foreclosure on their home.
Nowadays, both individuals representing themselves as well as attorneys who represent bankruptcy filers face a higher standard of liability when filing a bankruptcy petition. This not only applies when filing a “bare bones” or petition only bankruptcy filing, but to the pre-filing requirements, and the responsibility to not make false or incorrect statements.
Texas homeowners who want to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy to save their home from foreclosure must be proactive. They need to take steps early on to get the process started, and their Chapter 13 case prepared. Whether its procrastination, or the inability to face the possibility of loosing their home, many people will wait to the day before, or the day of foreclosure sale to consider filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to save your home...
Foreclosure in Texas happens on the first Tuesday of every month. If you wait until the Friday before the foreclosure sale or even worse the Monday before, you may cause yourself undue stress. For most bankruptcy lawyers in Texas, the Friday and Monday before the foreclosure sale is the busiest time of the month. Why? Because many people facing foreclosure wait to the last minute before they seek legal advice. There is always a rush days before the foreclosure sale to file for bankruptcy. Texas Bankruptcy Attorney R.J.Atkinson takes the time to meet with last minute clients in order to prepare and file emergency Chapter 13 Bankruptcy cases to save their homes. If you are eligible, waiting until the last minute before filing a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy to stop a foreclosure often causes needless stress and strain since there are many things are necessary to prepare a bankruptcy case.
- Before filing for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy you are required to take mandatory consumer credit counseling course approved by the US Trustee’s Office for the U.S Bankruptcy Court District in Texas where you are located. This must be completed 24 hours before you file your case and a certificate of completion must accompany your bankruptcy filing. While these courses are offered over the phone and online they can take an hour or more which can cause unnecessary strain to accomplish in a last minute scenario.
- Your bankruptcy petition, schedules, statement of financial affairs, and Chapter 13 repayment plan should be completed before filing case. Since this usually amounts to 40 to 60 pages of documents it can become a formidable task when given only hours or a day to prepare. Although all of this information may not be needed immediately, if it isn’t completed before the filing, it leaves room for potential problems later on.
- Proper contact information for creditors and all parties requiring notice of the bankruptcy filing should be obtained before filing the bankruptcy. It is very important to provide proper notice to the mortgage company, taxing authority, homeowners association or whichever party is foreclosing before the actual foreclosure sale. This may seem simple, but many people in foreclosure have no idea who the foreclosing creditor is.
- In order to determine eligibility for Chapter 13 as well the necessary disposable income to fund a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy plan it is necessary to have your last 6 months checks stubs to verify income. Also, if you are filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you do not need to complete the bankruptcy means test. But, you do need to complete a form almost identical to it which determines how much you must pay in a Chapter 13 repayment plan. Trying to get this information completed hours before the foreclosure sale doesn’t always work well.
Most people facing foreclosure don’t want to have to file for bankruptcy even when bankruptcy may be their best option to save their home. Many Texas homeowners are reluctant to file for bankruptcy because of the stigma that the media and culture have associated with it. Filing for Bankruptcy isn’t a criminal action and should be considered a personal business decision and not a moral or fashionable one. If your home is up for foreclosure, filing for bankruptcy isn’t a matter of saving face, it’s a matter of saving your home.
Texas homeowners facing foreclosure receive all kinds of mail offering everything from selling their home to investors for next to nothing, to mortgage workout programs by “foreclosure assistance companies” which often end up to be total scams. There are many who try to take advantage of people facing foreclosure by offering them false hope to stop foreclosure. These companies offer misinformation in attempts to lead people away from a filing for bankruptcy (which does in fact stop foreclosure) so they can take advantage of their vulnerable situation. For whatever reason, people have many misconceptions about bankruptcy and foreclosure. We have successfully stopped over 1000 foreclosures with Chapter 13 Bankruptcy for our clients, so we know that bankruptcy stops foreclosure. Despite this fact, people will often wait until the last possible moment to get a consultation from a bankruptcy lawyer which compounds their stress and may limit their options.
The bottom line is that it is better to get all of your options to stop foreclosure early on so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not to file for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. If Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is right for you then you have to file your case before the foreclosure sale in order to save your home. Don’t wait until the day before the foreclosure sale to decide as the lack of preparation will only add frustration and stress to the situation. You cannot save your home once the foreclosure sale has begun.
Don’t let your home get foreclosed because you waited to the last minute. If you live in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, or most anywhere in Texas, contact the Texas Bankruptcy Attorneys at The Law Offices Of R.J.Atkinson for a free initial consultation to see how we can help you with your foreclosure.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to save your home. Texas Bankruptcy Law Firm
Contact Texas Bankruptcy Attorney R.J.Atkinson at: 800-436-9056