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Yes, there is, but it is extremely difficult and rare. Student loans are classified as non-dischargeable debt, meaning that they are still due even after filing bankruptcy. However, there is a way to get the court to discharge them: prove undo hardship. To do this, you must convince the court that you cannot maintain a minimum standard of living and also repay your student loans at the same time, your current bad financial situation is extremely likely to continue, and that you have made an honest effort to pay off the student loans. Although this is theoretically possible, it is very rarely granted by the court. A court might consider this route if you are permanently and totally disabled.

If you have questions about whether your situation might warrant a student loan debt discharge, contact a Florida bankruptcy attorney to discuss your case.

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A new law that came out in 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, requires consumers that file for bankruptcy to complete credit counseling within the 6 months prior to filing. This is a program that can be done online, in person, or over the phone. You can search the Internet for a provider. Also, there is usually a free course given once per month at the Federal Courthouse. Once you have completed the course, the provider will email or fax a Certificate of Credit Counseling to your Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney. Your The date you completed your credit counseling must be before your petition is filed.

There is also a second education requirement when filing bankruptcy, the Certificate of Debtor Education. This is very similar to the credit counseling but this one must be done after you file your bankruptcy. You must fulfill this requirement before the court will grant you a discharge. So for a Chapter 7, the debtor education must be completed within 60 days of your 341 meeting of creditors. For a chapter 13, the debtor education requirement must be completed before the last payment under your Plan is due, so this could be up to five years.

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Not unless your debt was secured by the house. Most credit card debt is unsecured debt. A creditor cannot take your house for an unpaid unsecured debt. If a creditor comes to you later and asks you to sign something that puts your house or car up for collateral for your current credit card debt, DO NOT sign it before speaking with a Jacksonville consumer law attorney first to know your legal rights and the consequences of signing such an agreement.

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home-in-foreclosure-thumb-250x166-2941Under a chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can keep your home by reaffirming the debt. This means that you will, through a Statement of Intention, tell the creditor that you wish to keep the property and will continue to be liable for the loan.

If you are behind in payments and able to make the current payments, you may want to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy. This will allow you to keep your home and pay the arrearages that you owe through your chapter 13 Plan. This Plan will be anywhere from 3-5 years in length and will allow you to catch up on all the monies owed to keep your house. You can put all your creditors in the Plan, including liens by homeowner’s associations, second mortgages, tax debt, etc. You can even, through the Plan, catch up on arrearages for your vehicle.

If you are thinking of filing bankruptcy and you want to learn more about how to keep your home, contact a Jacksonville attorney today for a free consultation.

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house.jpg Yes it is possible with a Florida bankruptcy to keep one property but not the other. When a bankruptcy is filed, you have the option to keep or surrender secured collateral, including real property. So you can decide, with the help of your Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney, for each property that you own what would be in your financial best interest: to surrender the property to the creditor or to retain the property and continue payments. But be mindful that in Florida, you can only take one homestead exemption in bankruptcy.

If you are behind on your payments, this can be cured. You can pay the arrearages that you owe through your Chapter 13 Plan. Talk with a Jacksonville bankruptcy lawyer to decide if keeping both a homestead and rental property would be in your financial best interest.

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NO. When you file bankruptcy, an automatic stay is put into place that blocks creditors from trying to collect from you. A creditor cannot call or write you to ask for you to pay a bill and they cannot repossess your property. A Jacksonville bankruptcy lawyer can probably get your vehicle back for you. If the creditor knew about the bankruptcy, which is likely, then your bankruptcy attorney can actually sue the creditor for monetary damages due to FDCPA violations.

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The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is an Act that Congress passed in response to a growing number of abusive collection practices used by collection agencies. The FDCPA provides guidelines that creditors must follow when trying to collect debts from consumers. This Act applies to debt collectors. A debt collector is defined as any person who regularly collects debts that are owed to others. This act also applies to attorney collectors but in-house collections are not covered.

If the collection department from your favorite store is contacting you regarding your credit card with them, they are not restricted by the FDCPA, but they are governed by the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act. However, if that same store used an outside collection agency, that agency is governed by the FDCPA.

Some restrictions that the FDCPA puts on debt collectors are:

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You should have filed bankruptcy before your car was repossessed. If you had filed before the repossession, a Jacksonville Bankruptcy Lawyer could have saved your auto from being taken back by the creditor. This is a perfect example of why it is so important not just to ignore your bills, but to be proactive in finding out your options when you find that you cannot pay your bills any longer. This is when legal advise from an attorney who has experience in bankruptcy and consumer law is so important. If a legal repossession happened before the bankruptcy was filed, there is little chance in getting it back.

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Yes. Your father is an “insider”. (So is a friend or other relative.) To analyze property transferred to an insider, the trustee will look back one year. If you have transferred property to an insider within a year prior to filing, the trustee might try and undo the transaction. For creditors that are not insiders, the trustee will look back six months from the time of filing to analyze property transfers.

Contact a Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney today to assess your individual situation to see whether a trustee is likely to undo an insider transaction.

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Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you cannot incur new debt without permission of the trustee or the court. Your Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney can do this by submitting a Request to Incur New Debt with the trustee of your case. If the trustee signs off on the request, you can buy the vehicle. The trustee should approve the request unless he or she decides that you cannot afford the new payment. If the trustee denies request, your Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney will file the Request to Incur New Debt with the court and ask the judge to override the trustee’s denial. This dictates whether you can buy the car or not. If neither the judge nor the trustee will approve the Request to Incur New Debt that your Jacksonville Bankruptcy attorney files, you cannot purchase the vehicle. If you disobey the order and enter into a contract to purchase the vehicle, the Court can sanction you or dismiss your case.

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