Bankruptcy

You Are Ready To Retire. Is It Time To Consider Filing Bankruptcy?

By Susanne Robicsek, North Carolina Bankruptcy Attorn

Don’t wait until you are ready to retire to consider filing for bankruptcy.   It breaks my heart to see people, especially senior citizens, come to my office as they near or pass retirement, with little savings to help cover future medical and living expenses.  Upon investigation I find that many have used their retirement funds to make payments on credit card or medical debt that they had no real hope of ever paying off.  When you do the math, you can see that for many people all that has been done for years is keep the debt afloat with little or no progress towards paying down the debt.   It is often when they enter retirement and their incomes drop that the collection calls drive my senior clients to seek my help.  Bankruptcy is inevitable, but there is little time left to prepare for the future.

Worse still, if retirement accounts were used to pay debts they were probably protected funds and not within the reach of creditors.  Those funds could have stayed safe until they were needed in retirement years.

I can’t do anything to bring back any of the money that was paid to debt payment instead of preparing for retirement, however bankruptcy might help  stop collection calls and letters, and get people debt free so they might make ends meet going forward.  For these individuals, filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy may give them the fresh start they need to try to prepare for retirement.  At this stage in life, Chapter 13 bankruptcy may not be an option.  Sadly, so many go forward with nothing more than social security to try to make ends meet, and many people  will not be able to cover their expenses on social security alone even after they file for bankruptcy.

See also:

Money For Retirement by Cathy Moran, California Bankruptcy Lawyer

Borrowing Against Retirement: Using Your Future To Pay For Your Past by Susanne Robicsek Charlotte NC Bankruptcy Lawyer

Full post as published by Bankruptcy Law Network on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).