1. Bankruptcy can give you a fresh start and help you walk away from your debt. A chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidates your debt and allows you to start over with a clean slate.
2. You can keep your home. Even with a bankruptcy, homeowners in the State of Florida have a homestead exemption that allows them to keep their home and they can likely void any secured liens on the property.
3. If you don’t have a home you can likely keep all of your belongings. In the State of Florida those not claiming a homestead exemption can claim a $4,000 super-exemption that will likely allow them to keep all of their belongings at the end of a bankruptcy.
4. With a bankruptcy, you can potentially keep your car. In the State of Florida there is a $1,000 exemption on any equity in your car. If you have a lien on the car and you want to keep it you can keep paying for the car and keep possession. If you don’t have a lien on the car, with a bankruptcy, you can still keep the car with a $1,000 exemption on any equity.
5. It is your constitutional right to declare bankruptcy and the banks like to play “hide the ball” from you. They try clever words such as “obligation” “promised” “reliable”. What they don’t want you to know is in the same courthouse where you are entitled to file bankruptcy they are doing the same thing. Don’t let banks bully you out of your fresh start. The US Constitution states that the Congress shall have the powers to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy throughout the United States. You wouldn’t let a bank tell you where you can worship, why would you allow them to tell you who you have to pay?