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Filing for bankruptcy can be the answer to debt and other financial challenges. However, there may be non-bankruptcy options that you can also explore. In fact, some persons may actually be better off not filing for bankruptcy. Your California bankruptcy attorney must be able to sit with you and explore all your options before he proceeds with a filing.

For instance, one way to go through the non-bankruptcy route is to pay all debt through a creditor settlement. These creditor settlements allow you to pay creditors through a payment plan in a manner that is convenient to you.

Your bankruptcy attorney can also ask creditors to have the debt settled for a lower amount in the form of a one-time settlement. Sometimes, creditors like to cut their losses, and settle debt for a smaller amount.

In California, bankruptcy lawyers can also choose an out-of-court insolvency proceeding to clear debt instead of going through the court. This is called an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and it is less expensive than filing for bankruptcy. Depending on your financial situation, this may be an effective option for you. However, an assignment for the benefit of creditors has limited uses compared to a bankruptcy.

Also, ask your bankruptcy attorney to recommend debt counseling services that can help you develop a plan to eliminate your debt over a period of time. In cases where a person has very limited assets or no assets at all, there may be no point in filing for bankruptcy. There is very little that creditors can do in such a case, and in these situations, attorneys may recommend no action at all.

However, if none of these options are appropriate, bankruptcy may be the only solution for you.

It is that time of the year when college students across the country begin making the long and arduous college admissions process. It's also the time when California personal bankruptcy attorneys find students making one of the biggest and most impactful financial decisions of their lives - the decision to take a loan to pay for college. This year, the feds have launched a new tool to help students and their families figure out the financing plan that is best suited to them.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched a beta version of the Financial Aid Comparison Shopper. According to the Consumer Financial Education Bureau, this bill is meant to be an interactive online tool that can help students and their families compare financing schemes for college education.

What the Financial Aid Comparison Shopper does is help students make proper comparisons of different loan schemes, and choose the one that suits their needs as well as their long-term financial future best.

The Financial Aid Comparison Shopper currently has more than 7,500 institutions in its database. These include not just private colleges, but also vocational schools as well as state and private colleges.

The database gives you a single portal on which you can access data from thousands of institutions, and use it to make a decision. The database can also help you work out the monthly loan payments. That makes it easy to compare your financial burden based on the different colleges.

The feds have recently been investing a lot of time and effort in helping students navigate the minefield that is college debt. Those efforts are based on fears that the student loan crisis is the next major financial crisis that will rock the economy. Currently, student debt in the U.S. is at the $1 trillion mark, and counting.

According to a new study, black Americans are much more likely than whites to choose a more expensive form of bankruptcy filing to root out their financial troubles. These people are more likely to file for Chapter 13 protection, versus Chapter 7.

Chapter 7 filings are less expensive than Chapter 13 filings, and also come with a much higher success rate. In the case of Chapter 13 filings, a person could spend the next several years paying back debt, although this doesn’t automatically make this plan worse than any other.

However, a study that investigated racial differences in bankruptcy filings has found that black Americans are much more likely to be steered into a Chapter 13 filing than white Americans. The disparity was seen even when both the black and white persons were in the same financial situation. Among blacks who filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection, the rate was almost twice as high as for whites.

The trend was seen across the country, but there was an increase in Chapter 13 filings among people in the South. The findings of the study are expected to be published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies later in 2012.

California personal bankruptcy lawyers don’t take the results of the study to mean that the disparity is the result of discrimination. Not many studies have been conducted into racial differences in bankruptcy filings, which is why not much attention is paid to any differences.

Choosing the wrong bankruptcy protection plan can be disastrous. It must be mentioned here that each of these plans has its place, and each proceeding has its own benefits and advantages. An experienced California bankruptcy attorney should be able to evaluate your financial situation, and determine the plan that benefits you the most.

California bankruptcy lawyers often come across businesses that have been liquidated after Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings even when these were not necessary.  There are alternatives to bankruptcy, and unfortunately, many business owners are not aware of these options.  One particular option allows business owners to quickly and efficiently settle debts out of court.

An assignment for the benefit of creditors or ABC is a viable alternative to bankruptcy in many situations.  Under an ABC, the assets of the business are transferred to a third party.  The third party is called an assignee.  The assignee is in charge of selling the assets and distributing the proceeds generated among the creditors.

All kinds of property can be included in the assets that are assigned.  Property and other real assets, as well as intangible assets can be included.

Assignment for the benefit of creditors procedures are designed to save costs and time, and can work efficiently to resolve the debts of your insolvent company.  The effects can be sold quickly and creditors repaid soon after the proceedings. 

An assignment for the benefit of creditors can work to the benefit of both creditors and business owners.  Creditors actually like ABC because it allows them to do away with the legal costs and hassles involved with a foreclosure. In some cases it may even be possible for the owners of a troubled business to purchase some of the assets back from the assignee.

The entire process can take less than a year to complete, which makes it quicker and efficient.  The assets can be transferred to the assignee while the sale of assets is on.  An assignment for the benefit of creditors can also be much less expensive than bankruptcy proceedings.

We are happy to announce our new blog located here on our Alternatives to Bankruptcy site.  We hope this blog will grow to become a valuable resource of information & news relating to personal bankruptcy and alternatives to bankruptcy available to individuals who are struggling to meet their debts. 

Thank you.