child support

What is Chapter 7 bankruptcy?

Filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a serious financial decision for individuals who have large amounts of debt they likely won’t ever be able to repay. 

Though filing for Chapter 7 ultimately gives you a fresh financial start by eliminating debt, it may come with serious consequences, including negatively impacting your long-term personal credit health and the loss of valued personal possessions.

What is Chapter 7 bankruptcy? 

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is liquidation bankruptcy that will discharge most of your unsecured debts. 

“Among other actions, a bankruptcy court will issue a temporary stay on collection activities, so collectors will stop calling and wage garnishments will cease,” said Derek Jacques, bankruptcy attorney with The Mitten Law Firm in Southgate, MI.

Types of collection activities that may be halted temporarily include evictions, garnishments and repossessions.

“With Chapter 7, the court will take ownership of your assets, and assign a trustee to oversee the proceedings,” Jacques said. “The trustee will review your finances, debts, income, and assets.”

The court may sell non-exempt property to help pay back your creditors and also run a meeting between you and your creditors where you’ll answer questions about your filing. 

Certain types of debts can be discharged In Chapter

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Former state senator files bankruptcy in effort to get out of jail for child support non-payment

Jeremy Hutchinson on Friday, his second day in jail, filed for voluntary bankruptcy and appealed the contempt order that incarcerates him indefinitely to the Arkansas Supreme Court, measures that should get him out of jail within a week at most without having to pay $524,000 in child support arrears for his freedom, his lawyer said Friday.

Clinton Lancaster, the Benton lawyer who brought a successful paternity action in Independence County against presidential son Hunter Biden, took on Hutchinson’s case Friday. Lancaster said Hutchinson’s Chapter 13 bankruptcy declaration carries a federal stay of the state-court divorce proceedings that landed Hutchinson in jail on Thursday.

“You can’t put people in jail for their debts once they file for bankruptcy … so [release] is a matter of time,” Lancaster said, describing Hutchinson’s incarceration as “debtor’s prison.”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/dec/31/former-state-senator-files-bankruptcy-in-effort/”We want to make it clear that Jeremy is not running from having to pay his debts. He has incurred a lot of judgments and things of that nature and he just needs relief.”

Bankruptcy will allow Hutchinson, 48, to discharge some portions of the divorce-related debt ascribed to him by the court, but not what he owes in child support and not whatever financial penalties he incurs

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