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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Credit |
Bankruptcy, credit counseling, or pay it ourselves??? |
My wife and I went through the stack of old bills we had in the closet. Some of them are 5 years old and get more recent. We sorted out all the duplicates and added them up. Combined we have a total of roughly 8000 dollars. Take in mind NONE of these are credit card bills. Neither of us have had one. These are made up of mostly old medical bills and old utility bills from years past before we met. We also have a combined total of 4000 in student loans where we both took a semester in a nursing school. I know that you cannot get help with student loans. The goal is to be able to get our credit good enough to get a car loan and get an apartment without cosigner in the quickest timeframe possible. We are living with her parents and need our own place soon. Will our credit clear up if we just pay the bills outright? Or will it be better to use credit counseling or bankruptcy? Bottom line is the way to raise our credit score the fastest is what we want to choose. PLEASE HELP! Honestly...it does not really benefit you to pay debt that is already listed as negative on your credit report. Although the debt is old, you are still legally responsible for it. Ch. 7 bankruptcy may be an option for you as it will erase the negative charged off debt and help with you debt to income ratio. Despite what some of the responders may say, you can recover from bankruptcy. It is possible and easy to reestablish and obtain credit after bankruptcy. Hoped this helped. Source(s): ~I am a bankruptcy paralegal~ first i would try to go online and look up my credit report and dispute as much as i can if they dont respond in a certain amount of time then they have to take it off your credit report. then i would file bankruptcy and try to rebuild my credit up as fast and safely as possible, then as far as an apartment goes try to go somewhere that is decent that has flexible credit terms, believe me you can find a places like that and if you still have a hard time talk to the people at the leasing office and tell them you situation, or go with a private owner but beware of them and as far as utility bills go you have to pay those before you move because they wont turn your service on with and outstanding balance. god bless good luck In your case no bankruptcy and you do not need counseling. What you have to do, is call to each company and explain the situation and try to negotiate with them a repayment plan. Ask them maybe they will give you some break on a balances. Check your credit report first, maybe it's not even there. Good Luck! I would NEVER tell anyone to use credit counseling, or debt settlement or those debt relief agencies. I was using a popular debt relief agency and they made me all these bad promises and "forgot" to tell me certain things. They were supposed to negioatiate with companies to settle my debts for a lower price. well they forgot to tell me that while i was ignoring these bills, my credit was being hurt badly. These people would not try to settle with the companies until i had their fee (20% of your total debt), paid to them, then i was to make monthly payments to make a "pool" of money that they could use to negioate with. They forgot to tell me that they would not be letting my companies know what was happening and they were telling me they were now the power of attorney for me towards these companies and to just ignore them...what a joke on me that was...after paying them for several months, my credit being hurt badly, i got ahold of a very nice woman with a comapny I owed money to ( credit card) and she told me i did not need a credit counseling ) debt settlement ) company, but they were just taking my money and that I myself could negoiate and settle on my own to a lower price. These companies ( espically credit cards) would rather get some money from you instead of none. I then fired the credit counseling company and settled on my own. This particular credit card took 80 % off, YES 80% off my amount due if i promised in writing to get the remaining amount due paid off in 6 months, which i did...If I had only known it would be this easy. I would contact each of oyur companies, see if they will work out a "settlement" with you and work out some kind of plan that works for you. It wont hurt to ask and certainly worked for me, and this was a MAJOR credit card/bank company that did it for me. The credit company that I fired said companies never go below 50% but they were shocked when i showed them my agreement that my company knocked off 80%..I am now on a positive road to being debt free and getting my credit score built back up. FYI this type of settleemnt does show "closed and settled" on your credit report. You should get copies of your credit reports and see what they say about these deliquencies. Credit counseling dont really care how much they help out, as long as they make it sound good to you and they get their fees, these places as good and professional as they may be CANNOT do anything more or work better with these companies than you can. Just be honest with the places you owe money to, work out a plan that works for everyone and pay them what/how you promised and they will work with you. Like i said they would rather take a cut and get some money than to never recieve any at all. I had another credit card company cut my balance down and settle for 960.00 when I owed 1600.00...and like i said earlier i had one go down 80% for me after talking to them...good luck I would ask you to go for a debt consolidator and settle the debt. You can also do it by yourself but remember they are much more professional than you so if you consult it will be better. To know more you can visit http://www.hstrial-tgeorge1.homestead.co... I would just pay off the bills. If possible, get a bill consodulation loan. The bills just wont go away. This comes from personal experence. Now for bankruptcy, a family member is going through it right now. He must give up the next three years of tax returns. The bankruptcy courts is also taking over half of his pay checks to pay off his creditors. Most of his bills are medical. Now credit counseling, I went through it my self. Several things must come into play. First the company you select counseling from makes a proposal. Then you must agree to pay this proposal on time. Often they automatically debit your bank account, as with me. Then they send the proposal to your creditors. It is the creditors right to accept deny or alter the proposal. Luckly all my creditors accepted mine. They could add to the proposal; such as an increase in payment or make terms for the proposal agreement. Some of the terms could be that at random they will check your credit report and if you have opened any new accounts, they have every right to null and void the credit counseling proposal. Plus they can charge you back intrest and increase your intrest rates. Also it shows up in your credit report and no creditor will be willing to lend you money or issue you a credit card. If you can't get a loan to pay off your bills maybe you can contact your creditors and make payment arrangements. It is better paying them off then leave them hanging. |
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