Are you approaching the age of retirement? Do you worry over making your monthly payments towards your credit card and other debts after retirement? Are you thinking of taking help of debt consolidation companies? Do you think that the social security benefits won’t be enough to meet the daily expenses? Are you thinking of declaring yourself bankrupt? If answers to all the above mentioned questions are “yes”, you should know the consequences of bankruptcy and should think of some other way to get out of financial problems.
Bankruptcy is a legal process, by which you can “refresh” your financial position, if you are unable to pay back the money you have borrowed. According to the Federal Law, you need to file before a court to declare yourself bankrupt. As per the new Bankruptcy Law of 2005, you have to undergo credit counseling of 180 days, before you can file for bankruptcy.
If you take refuge in debt consolidation companies, the representative of the company will analyze your financial condition and help you to prepare a budget. He will also contact your creditors and negotiate with them to consolidate all your outstanding debts into a new consolidated loan, at lower interest rate and with lower monthly payments. He may also request the creditors to waive off penalties for late payment or over limit charges.
Opting for bankruptcy at the time of retirement will cause you more harm than good. Some of the consequences of bankruptcy are:
• Your credit history will suffer a major damage and it will inflict a long term financial injury. Bankruptcy will stay on your credit report for 7 to 10 years.
• Unless your property is under “exempt” category, you are going to lose most of the assets you have made over your lifetime.
• If you have a co-applicant in your debt account, the co-applicant will also suffer from the agony of bankruptcy.
• All your financial control will get transferred to the court and the fate of your debt accounts will be in the hands of the magistrate.
• Your social esteem as a responsible senior will get badly affected. So, you may lose your mental peace.
The benefits of taking help of debt consolidation companies, to pay off your debts, are:
• The moment you will enroll yourself in the program, all harassing calls from your creditors will come to an end.
• You will not have to worry about contacting and negotiating with the creditors. The company representative will take care of all the trouble and he will be able to deal with the creditors in a more professional and effective way.
• You will get lower interest rate, so your monthly payments will also become lower. Thus you can save pay more than the minimum amount and pay off your debts in a shorter time.
• Once you start paying and become current with your payments, your credit ranking will get improved. Thus, it will save you from filing for bankruptcy
If you have incurred too many debts and you’re approaching the age of retirement, you should take advantage of debt consolidation and avoid going bankrupt and losing all your assets, earned over the lifetime.