Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m an attorney here with The Financial Law Group located in Warren, Michigan. Our website is financiallawgroup.com and our phone number is 586-693-2000. And I’m here to talk to you about why you should do a Trust rather than a Will. Most people think that they’re the same thing and they’re really not. What a will is, although it’s valuable to do a will rather than do nothing is basically a letter to the probate court telling the probate court how you want your assets to be handled. Many people think that by doing a will you’re avoiding probate altogether once you’ve passed and that is just not the case. If you’re goal is to avoid probate and allow your family to deal with the assets without having to deal with courts and lawyers and all those costs that are involved the way to avoid that is by doing a Trust. I believe in trust. I actually did it for my own family so I can tell you that that’s the case. Trusts do cost a little bit more on the front end because they’re a little bit more work but what we found is that by doing a trust, you’re able to completely avoid probate and make sure that it remains a private, within the family affair when dealing with the assets of someone who has passed.
If you want to find out more about setting up your Trust feel free to give me a call. I’d be happy to meet with you personally. Our phone number is 586-693-2000 and I do offer free consultations.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney with The Financial Law Group here in Warren, Michigan. And I’m here to talk to you today about your IRAs and 401Ks as you go through bankruptcy.
One of the biggest concerns that my clients have is the fact that they might have accumulated some retirement funds in a IRA or 401K and their concerned about losing those funds, and rightfully so. That is most people’s retirement, these days so, protecting that is a very, very important part of the process. The good news is, is that IRAs and 401Ks, generally speaking, are totally protected as you go through the bankruptcy process. So, even if you have $1,000,000.00, sitting in 401K accounts, those funds are totally protected. They’re there for your retirement and your creditors cannot touch them.
The sad thing that I sometimes see is where people have taken a bunch of money out of a 401K account to pay back their creditors. Because what happens then it that you’ve essentially given your creditors access to funds that otherwise they would have no access to otherwise. I strongly urge people to think of 401K accounts as savings for retirement. It is a savings account. It is not something that you can dip into when an emergency comes up or when you need to pay a certain bill or when you need to take care of one issue. What it is, is it’s a savings for retirement. I will say that there’s one exception to my rule there and it is where people have sometimes been able to take money out of a 401K and actually buy a house.
There are some opportunities for buying houses that are very inexpensively in the current economy and I’ve had some clients that have been able to take money out of a 401K, buy a house and own it free and clear or darn near free and clear and that’s been a really good option for a lot of people. Point being, don’t take money out of your 401K to pay credit card debt. That’s a complete waste. And don’t worry about as you’re going through a bankruptcy case losing your 401K. If you want to find out more about bankruptcy or your 401K for that matter, please feel free to give me a call. My phone number is 586-693-2000. We offer free consultations and I’d be happy to meet with you personally.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney here with The Financial Law Group located in Warren, Michigan. Our phone number is 586-693-2000. Our website is financiallawgroup.com. And I’m here to talk to you today about protecting your assets as you go through bankruptcy. One of the biggest concerns people have when they’re contemplating bankruptcy is they’re concerned that they’re going to lose a bunch of the things that they own. Well, for the most part, and for most people, they never lose anything as they’re going through bankruptcy.
There is such a thing called exemptions. And what exemptions are is that it’s the procedure by which we protect your assets. You see, when congress was drafting the bankruptcy code it understood that business’s will be wiped out, that’s an understanding. However, people still need certain things to go on living. They still need clothing, they still need furniture, they still need a vehicle, they still need their home. So as a result of that, what they did is that they put certain exemptions of the bankruptcy code that allow you to keep your assets.
Generally speaking, we’re able to protect most assets that people have if not all of them. In fact, it’s pretty rare that I client of mine will actually lose an asset as they go through their case. And one thing is for sure. As we’re going through the preparation process of getting the documents ready, usually, I’m able to point out to that person that there is a risk that a certain asset will be lost. So we can kind of make a decision how we proceed from there, from that point on.
If you’re concerned about bankruptcy and want to find out if you can go through bankruptcy and protect all your assets at the same time, feel free to give my office a call. We offer free consultations and I would be glad to meet with you personally. My phone number is 586-693-2000.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney with The Financial Law Group here in Warren, Michigan. Our website is financiallawgroup.com and our phone number is (583) 693-2000. One question that’s come up sometimes, has been, what can we do about garnishments? Well, garnishments are actually a good opportunity for the debtor a lot of the time as you’re going through this process. The reason being, is, as soon as you file bankruptcy, from the minute you file bankruptcy, any garnishments will stop.
So that, so that doesn’t mean you need to wait for your case to be over. You don’t need to wait for the hearing to be over to stop the garnishments. They stop from the second that you file your case. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, a lot of the time, we’re able to go back as much as 6 months. So if you’ve been having your wages garnished over 3 months, and they garnished a bunch of money from you, a lot of the time, we can go back to that creditor, and get those funds back for you. I’ve actually had clients who were able to pay the full amount of money that they owed for their legal fees, plus even gotten back some additional funds from bunds that had previously been garnished from their paychecks or from their bank accounts.
If you want to find out more about getting back funds that have been garnished from you, or about bankruptcy or any other issues, feel free to give my office a call. The number is (586) 693-2000. I offer free consultations and I’d be glad to meet with you personally.
Hi. I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney here with The Financial Law Group in Warren, Michigan. Our website is financiallawgroup.com and our phone number is 586-693-2000. And I’m here to talk to you today about seizures of assets by creditors. One thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that you, if you have a vehicle and a credit card company, for example, gets a judgment against you, that credit card company with that judgment would be entitled to come and grab things like your car, for example, or other assets that you may have. The most common kinds of assets that are seized, of course, are money. Things like bank accounts can be garnished or wages that can be garnished or a state tax return which can also be garnished. But again they can have a deputy sheriff show up at your house and actually seize the asset.
One thing I recommend to my clients to do, who have that happen to them is come in and file bankruptcy immediately. By filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy if you file fast enough you can stop them from selling the asset and a lot of the time because of the fact that it’s considered a preferential payment we can often get that asset back. But again it has to be done before the asset is actually sold. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, once it’s sold you’re out of luck and the value of that these assets get sold for often are very, very low which can be very disappointing to people where they’ve just lost something like the vehicle that they were using to get to work.
Point being, if you have lost an asset as the result of a judgment against you I strongly advise you to come see me immediately. My phone number is 586-693-2000. Let them know that it’s an emergency and I’ll be happy to meet with you personally.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney with The Financial Law Group, located here in Warren, Michigan. Our phone number is (586) 693-2000, and our website is financiallawgroup.com. I’m here to talk to you today about the credit counseling requirement for filing bankruptcy. A lot of people get scared off, thinking they’re going to have to go to some class. I’m going to have to sit in this class, and I’m going to have to answer questions, and I’m going to have to take a test. And none of that is true, that’s the good news. For most of the people who do their credit counseling, they do it one of two ways. They either do it at a website on a computer or they do it by a call on the phone line where generally speaking there will be an automated system that they’ll go through and listen to some information and then someone will get on the phone at the end of the call to talk with them for 5 minutes or so. There is always some requirement that you have some interaction with the company whether it be that you make a phone call at the end after you’ve compiled the website or sometimes I’ve seen it where they’ve had some type of online system where you chat directly with a credit counselor online. Those are two options. But the vast majority of the cases where the people go through the credit counseling that’s how they do it.
Credit counseling- The cost of it will vary anywhere from 30 to 50 dollars and it is a requirement. It’s a jurisdictional requirement. So what that means is literally you can not file your bankruptcy case until you have completed that credit counseling. You are not eligible to be a debtor. The bankruptcy court doesn’t have jurisdiction over you until you have completed that credit counseling. Typically credit counseling takes about an hour to an hour and a half. If you spend much more than that you’re doing it wrong.
A lot of people I’ve seen where they go in, go in have a lot of trouble and try to dig our all kinds of documents, try to get all their bills, and try to see how much they owe. Don’t do that. It’s not worth it. This information doesn’t go anywhere. What you just want to do is you want to go through, you want to proximate things, you want to read the information and a lot of people find it very helpful. But at the end of the day it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just something you need to complete so you’re eligible to file bankruptcy.
There is a second set of credit counseling you need to do once your case if filed. But we’ll also set that up for you as well. If you want to find out more about filing bankruptcy please feel free to call my office. 586-693-2000 is my phone number and I’d be happy to meet with you personally.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner, I’m a bankruptcy attorney here with The Financial Law Group here in Warren, Michigan. Our website is financiallawgroup.com, and our phone number is (586) 693-2000. And I’m here to talk to you today about taxes, an issue that none of us like to talk about. Taxes are actually dischargeable in some cases in bankruptcy, and that usually a big surprise to most people. Most people think that, if the, if the federal government or the state is coming after you, there’s nothing you can do about it, and that’s actually not the case.
If you have a tax debt that’s more than three years old and there’s a good chance that that tax debt would be dischargeable in bankruptcy. That’s as long as you’ve filed your tax return on time. The way that you calculate the amount of time that has to be is if you look at the date that the tax was accessed, for example the date that you filed the tax return or that the last date the tax return could have been filed. So, say, April fifteenth, and then go three years from that date. Any taxes that are more than three years old based on that calculation would be the type of thing that would be dischargeable in bankruptcy. Now, even if the tax that is newer than that, it is still something that could be handled in a bankruptcy. In those cases we might look at a chapter 13 case.
What we can do, we can file the case. We will set up a payment arrangement, essentially, with the IRS that will allow you to pay back the taxes generally speaking interest free over 5 years. Usually, that’s a better deal than you’ll get working directly with the IRS, although, not always. That is an option for people who might have tried to do something with the IRS but wasn’t quite able to work something out or if the tax is a smaller amount of money such as, $10,000, where it would be the type of thing that would be a reasonable payment over time. That has worked out quite well for a number of my clients as well. If you owe some tax liability and are interested in talking about some of your options please feel free to give me a call at my office. I’d be happy to meet with you personally. My phone number is 586-693-2000.
Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a bankruptcy attorney here with The Financial Law Group, located here in Warren, Michigan. Our website is financiallawgroup.com and our phone number is (586) 693-2000. And I’m here to talk to you today about mortgage deficiency balances. What a mortgage deficiency balance is, is it’s the difference between what you owe on your mortgage payment, and what they sell the house for. So say, for example, you owed $100,000 on your house. Say that, and this is quite common in this economy, your house sells for $50,000 at the end of the day. The mortgage company can still come after you for that difference, that $50,000.
You may think, well I gave them my house, well I had spent all the money that I had, all the equity that I had in the house went away with it. That’s all true. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the difference between what you owed at the time that the house was foreclosed on and what they sold the house for at the sheriff’s sale. If there’s a difference there then that’s called the deficiency and you’re still liable for it. That’s particularly a big problem if you have a second mortgage because usually what happens when you have a second mortgage situation and that would be like a home equity loan of some type, or a home improvement loan or even just a second mortgage, what usually happens with the second mortgage situation is that the first mortgage might even get paid off in full as a result of the sheriff’s sale.
But if that happens then the second mortgage get wiped out entirely. And again even though, you get wiped out entirely as a result of foreclosure that doesn’t mean you’re not liable for that mortgage anymore. And they will come out at to you, I just had a client coming a little while ago is being sued for $70,000 for a mortgage. A first mortgage where there was a deficiency but he put everything in hand to his house and the house was foreclosed on and they’re still coming after him.
The good news is, is that this is a kind of debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy. So if you’re facing a situation like this where your house has been foreclosed and might be facing a deficiency, the difference between what you owe and what they sell the house for, um, and you’re concerned about them coming after you, I would strongly suggest you come in and see me. I do offer free consultations.
My phone number’s 586-693-2000 and if you’re interested in meeting about this or any other issue. I’ll be happy to meet with you personally.
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