TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG-CLEARWATER, FL BANKRUPTCY BLOG

The economy has been so bad for so long that it's been quite a while since the overall number of bankruptcy filings actually went down. Finally, in 2011, the numbers were down across the country for the first time since 2006.

Florida bankruptcy filings were part of this national trend, which applied to all of the main types of bankruptcy: Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13.

Keep in mind, however, that the numbers remain very high. Nationally, there were still 1.38 bankruptcy filings last year. This was down from 1.56 million in 2010, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

By any measure, many people are still struggling in debt relief issues. A total of 1.38 million bankruptcy filings is still very high compared to pre-Recession levels.

Analysts are trying to interpret the data to understand what factors may have driven the decrease in 2011. One effect of the weak recovery from the Recession may be a pullback in consumer spending.

The economy may not officially be in recession. But with unemployment hovering around 9 percent, affording mortgage payments remains a huge challenge for millions of people in Florida and around the country.

Many of these people are facing the possibility of losing their homes to the foreclosure process in 2012. Indeed, you may be one of those people.

If so, you may be asking yourself what role bankruptcy could play in helping you deal with your debts while keeping a roof over your head.

Filing for bankruptcy may not solve all of your debt relief problems, but it does give you more options. For one thing, it could force the company that owns or services your mortgage to actually negotiate with you about a modification of the terms of the loan.

According to a recent report in Forbes, big banks have massive amounts of housing loans on their books that they are taking into foreclosure. The numbers are breathtakingly large. Bank of America alone has $23 billion in residential loans in foreclosure. That number rises to a staggering $90.6 when loans serviced for other companies are added in.

The evidence just keeps coming in on the toll the Great Recession and its challenging aftermath are having on ordinary people. This is particularly true of people whose problems with debt include a delinquent mortgage and possible foreclosure.

A Florida foreclosure process attorney can help clients deal with the challenges. When you need debt relief, it makes to get help from lawyer experienced with these issues. An attorney will explain your debt relief options to you and help you make a decision about filing for bankruptcy.

Keep in mind, too, that you are among many thousands of people grappling with debt in this tough economy. Indeed, so many people have suffered from foreclosure or the threat of foreclosure that researchers are now saying that the impact of this stress is creating a public health crisis.

A study from the University of Maryland published in the American Journal of Public Health is one of the first attempts by researchers to document the impact on health of the recession and the ongoing housing slump.

The researchers focused on people over the age of 50. Surveys showed that many people in this age group who are behind on their mortgages are also struggling with depression. For some people, debt problems have become so acute that they may tend to forego prescription medicines that they think are too expensive. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on health, as can bad eating habits caused by financial pressure.

Of course, many people under 50 are facing mortgage default or foreclosure too. Research on the impact of the recession should probably be done on them as well. For now, it's clear that emerging evidence shows a negative impact on health for many people over 50 facing foreclosure.

Source: "Knight: Public health threatened by mortgage crisis," 10-31-11

Federal regulators are finally getting tougher with various scam artists and bad actors who peddle unprincipled and outright fraudulent debt relief services.

It's about time the feds got tougher. After all, unscrupulous pitches offering to get people out of debt have become a bigger and bigger problem in Florida and across the country amid the down economy of recent years.

The smart thing to do, as a consumer, is to talk your debt problems over with an experienced bankruptcy attorney who can help you weigh all of your debt relief options carefully. This blog post is therefore a cautionary one, warning you to wary of what the Federal Trade Commission calls "last-dollar scams."

These last-dollar scams are of various sorts. Many of them involve real estate, specifically dubious offers to help people catch up on their past-due mortgage debt. Others involve bogus work-from-home offers, fraudulent credit-card relief schemes, or fake government grants.

What all of these practices have in common is that they prey upon vulnerable people. Most people with debt problems try to do the right thing, even if it means paying practically their last dollar in an attempt to make things right. Unfortunately, paying the last dollar can make things even worse, not better, if that dollar is paid into the wrong hands.

That's why the FTC is trying to crack down. So far, the agency has been successful in shutting down several companies that charged upfront fees to distressed homeowners but did not deliver the debt relief that was promised. The FTC is also launching Operation Empty Promises to go after bogus business-opportunity offers.

Source: "Down to your last dollar? Don't Let con artists take it from you," Washington Post, 10-15-11

In Florida and across the country, medical bills remain one of the main causes of bankruptcy. About 1 in every 5 people who seek credit counseling identifies medical debt as the main reason for choosing to file for bankruptcy.

Over a year after the passage of federal health insurance reform legislation, that number is still not going down. In fact, it's gone up by 13 percent in the last two years, according to data from CredAbility, a nonprofit group that provides credit counseling.

Certainly the high unemployment rate is one of the issues that underlie the problem of medical debt. After all, people who lose their jobs typically lose their employer-provided health insurance as well.

Yes, it's conceivable to get insurance on the private market. But the premiums and deductibles available there are often pretty hefty compared to the terms available through employers.

Another aspect of the problem is the speed with which hospitals and other healthcare providers hand off medical debt to collections agencies. Hospitals and clinics frequently show little patience with slow payments and respond by quickly referring the bills to collection agencies.

Using a credit card to settle your medical debt may be just exchanging one problem for another. It doesn't matter whether the amount is added to an existing card or whether a new card is opened. Either way, it can be a problem.

Don't let healthcare providers push you into just putting everything on a credit card. It makes sense to ask in advance about payment plans. Indeed, you could even ask about getting the bill reduced, based on your circumstances and ability to pay.

Source: "Don't Let Yourself Get Hurt By Medical Debt," Forbes, 9-8-11

Something like this has happened to almost everyone.  The phone rings and you answer it.  The call is a from a debt collector who is looking for someone who does not live with you.  You tell the debt collector they have the wrong number, they say thank you and hang up the phone.  The next day the same thing happens.  The day after that, it happens again.  No matter how many times you tell the debt collector that the person they are looking for does not live with you, they continue to call.  Why do they do that? 

Well there could be many reasons why debt collectors will continue to call a number they know is not the debtors phone number.  The most common reason is that most debt collectors use an autodialer that is programmed to call certain numbers at certain times.  Unless they actually remove your number from the autodialer cue, the autodialer will continue to make that phone call. 

By continuing to call a number that they have been told is not the debtor's phone number, a debt collector violates both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Florida law.  Florida recognizes a person's right to privacy.  Your right of privacy is violated if the Debt Collector intrudes, either physically or electronically, into your private quarters (your home).  The Courts have held that when a debt collector repeatedly calls someone who has told them not to call they have violated that persons right to privacy.

If this has happened to your or somoene you know, you can make the phone calls stop.  You should consult with one of our attorneys who can file a lawsuit against the debt collector.  When a debt collector gets sued for this sort of conduct, they always remove the phone number from the autodialer.  You may also be entitled to damages from the debt collector.  And best of all, we handle cases like this on a contingency which means you will not owe us a fee unless we recover money from the debt collector.  In short, you really have nothing to lose so if this is happening to you, call us today!

There are many factors that affect the decision to file for bankruptcy. Some of the reasons, such as medical bills and job loss, are fairly straightforward.

A reason that is not as well known, however, is the availability of various forms of consumer credit. In a tight, post-Recession economy in which credit is harder to come by than before, the difficulty of getting credit can push people in bankruptcy.

A law professor who teaches bankruptcy law, Robert M. Lawless of the University of Illinois, puts it this way: "There is a lot of mythology about what drives bankruptcy rates," he said. "But consumer credit appears to be the most significant factor."

Mr. Lawless points out that, in last year or two, access to credit has become somewhat less difficult than it was immediately after the Recession ended. That helps to explain why the overall number of bankruptcy filings is down somewhat nationally. The number is expected to be down as much as 10 percent this year, from 1.56 million filings in 2010 to about 1.45 million this year.

That's still a lot of bankruptcies. The majority of these filings are for Chapter 7 bankruptcy; they account for nearly 70 percent of the total.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is also a valid option, especially for those seeking to protect their homes from foreclosure. Debtors to come up with a payment plan under which they agree to pay off a portion of their debts over a three-to-five year period.

If you have questions about bankruptcy, contact us to discuss your specific case.

Source: "Fewer Americans File for Bankruptcy, "New York Times, 7-6-11

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Only heart disease is deadlier.

The effects of cancer also go far beyond mortality tables. For one thing, the data show that the financial costs of coping with cancer are also a common cause of bankruptcy.

A recent research study has shown that cancer patients have significantly higher rates of bankruptcy than the population at large. The bankruptcy rate for cancer patients, one year after being diagnosed with the disease, is nearly twice that of the general population.

The lead author of the research study, Dr. Scott Ramsey, pointed out that people who are battling cancer "may face significant financial stress, owing to income loss and out-of-pocket costs associated with their treatment." According to Dr. Ramsey, bankruptcy rates for people diagnosed with cancer increase by a factor of four in the five years after the diagnosis.

This elevated risk of bankruptcy is an overall figure; for individuals, the chances vary considerably depending on the type of cancer, how advanced the cancer is, and other factors.

Still, the study's findings call attention to the link between medical bills and bankruptcy. This link tends is often closer for younger people, because older people tend to have more assets. But it is still a link that should be better known.

If you are battling both cancer and financial problems, talk with an attorney at our firm to discuss your debt relief options.

Source: "Bankruptcy Rates High Among Cancer Patients," Medscape Today, 6-16-11