Creditors Will Be More Active - The legislation provides many benefits to creditors, including a number of opportunities to object or get involved in the process. Creditors will have more leverage to obtain payments from debtors through bankruptcy. This also means that creditors may be more difficult to deal with outside of bankruptcy.

	Chapter 7 May Be Unavailable - Debtors with incomes above the state median incomes will have to file under Chapter 13 and may be required to repay their debts for a minimum of five years.
	Longer To Re-Establish Credit - Most bankruptcy debtors who file under Chapter 7, receive their discharge in about 3 months, and can be in a position to establish reasonably good credit immediately after their discharge. Under the new legislation the entire process will take longer and those required to file under Chapter 13 will not receive their discharge for five years

The bill is designed to reduce bankruptcy filings and increase payments to creditors in bankruptcy.

Consider the following:

If you had a drastic reduction in income, but your expenses have not changed, under the new law you could be forced to repay your debt.

If you suffered an illness or injury, you may be forced into a five- year repayment plan just because you could not afford health insurance in the first place.

If you were in a car accident and were uninsured because you could not afford car insurance, you would be forced to pay 100% of your expendable income each month into a court-ordered repayment plan, or suffer garnishments and other creditor action against you.

If you are going through a divorce and household income has been cut in half, under the new law you may no longer be eligible for a discharge of your debts.

Currently, Simonson & Olson can still help people in all of these circumstances.  Act now, before it's too late.