By: Darrell Castle
Your bankruptcy attorney should put you into a chapter that will allow you to keep your property
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Video Transcript
If you have to file for bankruptcy protection, can you keep your property?
Hi, I’m Darrell Castle and I’m an attorney licensed to practice law and the answer to that question is YES, you can. Your law firm is supposed to help you do that. Your law firm is supposed to help you file a bankruptcy chapter that will allow you to keep the property you want to keep.
Sometimes there might be property that you don’t want to keep.
For example, if you had a car or a truck that you owed more money on than it’s worth and you want to be free of that debt, you can do that through bankruptcy.
On the other side, if you had a home that you were upside down on – you owed MORE than its appraised value – and it’s a drain on your budget, then you could be free on that debt if you so chose.
But if you really wanted to keep those items, then there shouldn’t really be any reason why you wouldn’t be able to do that as long as you were able to make the payments. In other words, as long as you have income and a source to make the payments with.
Now, if you have property that is of more value or of higher equity-type property, then you can keep that as well in certain bankruptcy chapters.
You see, this is not just a crapshoot filing for bankruptcy. You don’t just put a case in court and say “gee, I wonder what will happen.” These things are all planned out with you and your law firm before you file.
Your law firm and you make a good determination about where you stand with your property, whether you can keep it in a certain chapter or whether you should do a different chapter that might better serve your needs and that sort of thing. That’s what good lawyers do for you in advance, folks.
The answer is, you’re not going to lose your property in bankruptcy if you’ve got a good law firm.