Indiana Bankruptcy Blog

What is the Best Bankruptcy Advice Ever?  The best bankruptcy advice is extremely simple: only take bankruptcy advice from a Bankruptcy Attorney.  The worst bankruptcy advice ever usually comes from friends, family, co-workers and misinterpreted internet searches.   The best bankruptcy advice comes from bankruptcy attorneys.   Let’s give a few examples where the best bankruptcy advice would have prevented the needless waste that resulted from receiving bad bankruptcy advice.  The “best bankruptcy advice” here is being used as a general expression.   Remember, every legal situation is different and requires specifically-tailored legal advice to know what is “best.”

 1:  Exhausting your 401(k) or IRA Paying Debts

Using a 401(k) or IRA to repay debts can be horrible advice which can create the needless waste of hard-earned retirement funds.   Because 401(k) and IRA accounts (or any other tax-exempt, tax-deferred retirement account) are designed for retirement, they are 100% exempt from any creditor collection.  Therefore, in many situations, it can be inferior advice to use loans or disbursements from these accounts to repay debts.   Frequently, we have seen clients needlessly exhaust their retirement accounts by paying on their debts only still file bankruptcy some short time in the future.   They would have frequently received different, better advice if they had consulted our office first.

2: Transferring Property Out of Your Name

We have seen numerous clients over the years transfer property out of their name due to bad bankruptcy advice before they came to our office.  Most of the time these transfers were very minor, but sometimes they have been substantial.  At times, we could not help them because of some kind of transfer that had been made.   The best bankruptcy advice is to let your attorney guide you on all matters in the bankruptcy.   Do not make any large changes or do any transfers before talking to a bankruptcy attorney.  Remember, the attorney will know what is the best course of action.

3: Refusing to File Bankruptcy or Waiting Too Long

We have encountered endless amounts of people who have needlessly suffered by waiting too long to file for bankruptcy or even refusing to file.  “Demonizing” bankruptcy is horribly irresponsible and cruel: it is likely the absolute worst sort of advice you can give to somebody who desperately needs bankruptcy relief.   Even misinformation can be very damaging to someone considering bankruptcy.   The best bankruptcy advice is to seek a bankruptcy attorney early in the process and get the whatever appropriate relief you need to recover from your economic situation.