How To Know You Need A Bankruptcy Lawyer

Posted on: 3 March 2017

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You may know that filing bankruptcy gives you several options including filing yourself or using a lawyer. You may also know there are several types of bankruptcy as well. After doing some research, you may be wondering if you even need a bankruptcy lawyer since you can buy kits and software. Here are some ways to know you need a bankruptcy lawyer to handle the proceedings, paperwork, and all the aspects of the process.

Unknown Debts

One of the first steps to filing bankruptcy is to have your credit report pulled. You will need to review it for issues and to see what you owe and who you owe it to. The problem with this is you may have some collections accounts that don't match anything. You can't tell what the account numbers are for, what the debt is for, or who you owe this to. You may not even have a contact number to find the information out. This is where you will need a bankruptcy lawyer. They can help figure out the related information to these accounts and find out if they are debts you actually owe and if they can be placed on the bankruptcy.

Verbally Abusive Representatives

You may be trying to handle everything on your own. This is fine, until you run across verbal abuse. You may have the right intentions when you call a collections agent. The problem is, once you call they may change their tune and the verbiage they use becomes abusive. You may also have threats made against you for foreclosing on your home, legal action, or more. Not everyone knows how to handle this properly or legally. This is why a bankruptcy lawyer can help. They can handle the contacts between you and your debt collectors. They can also let them know your intent with the outstanding balance and stop phone calls to you.

Paperwork and Fee Confusion

An aspect of filing bankruptcy that can be difficult is understanding and navigating the paperwork. Depending on the type of bankruptcy you are filing, you may have paperwork that requires filing fees. You may also have certain paperwork that has to be sent to people holding your debts while other paperwork just needs to be filled out by you. It can become very time consuming and costly if you don't have the experience your bankruptcy lawyer has.

These are just three reasons you may need a bankruptcy lawyer, like one from Dunbar & Dunbar. If you aren't sure one may actually help you, consider a free consultation.