A Debt Lawyer Can Help With Credit Settlements

A debt lawyer can help a person manage the money they owe to creditors and mortgage companies. Something that a debt lawyer can do is to help the person who owes money to reach a credit settlement. A credit settlement is an approach to the reduction of money that the person owes that both the person that owes money and the creditor agree on. That reduction becomes the reduced balance, which once paid, will be considered to have paid the whole of what is owed. With some of the settlements, the reduced final sum can be spread out over time like a normal credit payment.

In the United States, there are several indicators that most people do not actually get what they owe eliminated by a full and final settlement. A debt lawyer can help a consumer with this process. The debt lawyer will act for the consumer. If it is done correctly credit settlement can definitely help people who owe money. But the problem is that if the consumer stops the payments to the credit companies as part of the credit settlement, it could really hurt their credit scores. Sometimes a consumer's credit score will drop anywhere from sixty-five to one hundred and twenty-five points. For consumers who were actually current on their payments before they enrolled in the credit settlement program, it could actually damage their credit scores even worse than those people who were not current in the payments. What's worse is that a missed payment can actually remain on the person's credit report for up to seven years. It can remain on the person's report even after the credit is actually settled.

If a person opts to use a credit settlement company, that company could charge a huge fee in the beginning, even though it is against a rule that was put in place by the Federal Trade Commission. They might also take a monthly fee from the consumer's bank account as part of their service, which could decrease the incentive to quickly settle up with the creditors. Some advise consumers to look only for companies that charge a fee after the settlement is made, and that charge should only be about twenty percent of the total amount that the balance that needs to be paid is lessened.

Some experts are on the completely other end of the spectrum. They think that credit settlement is not a good idea and should be completely avoided. They think that the whole thing is a flawed model and does not work. One of the reasons that they say this is because many people do not even finish the program. They drop out of the credit settlement program, leaving their credit unpaid. This could really negatively affect the person's credit, especially if they missed any payments while in the program. Also, even just going into the program will often hurt the person's credit, so if they don't finish the program it will be even worse for them.