Bankruptcy Benefits

Bankruptcy for a business can be a solution. But bankruptcy for individuals is a cure. We have seen it cure stress, save , preserve financial futures and save lives. So, bankruptcy can be a cure, an answer, an alternative that can be obtained nowhere else. But more than this, bankruptcy is not an end, it is a beginning.

Properly executed, bankruptcy can put an end to existing debt, protect from lawsuits, foreclosures, seizures, bill collectors, judgment liens, tax liens, the IRS and other tax collectors. Some will say that bankruptcy is an anathema. But we disagree. Bankruptcy is nothing more than the final expression of financial reality and the beginning of recovery.

For consumers, bankruptcy can protect their present assets and guard their future. For the business owners, it can preserve their property, their leases, their equity and keep their business alive - or provide them with an opportunity to start another business with a clean slate.

Bankruptcy has peripheral benefits also. For instance, the reorganization of a business can be the means by which the obligations of guarantors are resolved. Bankruptcy can provide a forum for workouts and settlements in the criminal arena and it can be the vehicle for alimony and child support settlements (although these debts are not discharged in bankruptcy).

And bankruptcy can be turned right around and used as the most devastating collection mechanism imaginable - instantly creating both a judgment and a seizure of all property owned by the debtor, known and unknown and anywhere in the world.

Bankruptcy to the debtor can be the release from financial stress, or it can be the flash of a storm. It all depends on who is using the bankruptcy and whether it is used as a shield or a collection tool.

Charles Chesnutt