Can bankruptcy prevent foreclosure of your home?

There are some TV commercials popping up every now and then, which say that people who are facing troubles with their mortgage can now save their homes from foreclosure with the help of personal bankruptcy. In other words, filing for personal bankruptcy will mean that a person can avoid foreclosure. Is that true? Is it possible? Well, it is. As a matter of fact, when bankruptcy is filed, foreclosure proceeding as well as harassment calls from collection agencies. Analysis shows that when bankruptcy is filed, the borrowers get ample time to not only correct the finances, but also organize for the payments that they missed.

But a twist remains. The process is not helpful for every homeowner who is facing the problem of default. For example, if the problem of the homeowner is “absence of enough money”, the problem will not work. It is basically for those who have a continuous income source and had been making monthly payments, but were left behind due to some reason. In other words, the borrowers who can resume their payments can go for this method.

The first thing that bankruptcy does is that it stops the foreclosure proceedings. Why so? This is because the lenders do not have the permission to go ahead and collect the debts or proceed with foreclosure. The court prohibits them from doing so.

Borrowers need to decide whether they want to go, for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13. In Chapter 7, the unsecured debts will be wiped out completely and the consumers will have to repay only the secured loans like mortgages. However, since the unsecured ones are wiped off, the debtors can use that money to repay the secured ones.

However, experts suggest that Chapter 13 is more effective, because it will help the borrowers to repair their finances. The borrowers usually get a time of 3-5 years to make a monthly payment to a trustee, using an income based budget. The trustee uses that money to first clear off the secured debts followed by unsecured ones and then the income taxes, which the consumer did not pay in the past.

If the borrowers keep making these payments, they can come out of bankruptcy and still retain possession of their homes. There are downsides with this method and the greatest being that 240 points from the credit score can be lost and also bankruptcy leaves a black spot on the credit history for 10 years.

While people still continue to think and rethink about this process, the market continues to take hit, because of increased number of foreclosures. The prospective homebuyers can benefit from this as they can get heavy discounts on purchase of repossessed homes.

The latest data and news on foreclosure and a complete list of foreclosed properties can be found on ForeclosureDataBank.com. Take your time to visit us in case you want to purchase a foreclosed property!