Filing bankruptcy can help car owners keep their vehicle.
If you have missed several car payments, then you may be worried that the loan company is going to repossess your vehicle.
When faced with this threat, many attempt to hide their cars, avoid calls from loan companies, and keep their vehicles locked in a garage somewhere until they can come up with the money needed.
However, many loan companies have the capability to track vehicles through GPS trackers that are installed on cars that have an outstanding payment connected to them. Some also have the capability to prevent you from starting your car through employing devices called starter interrupters.
These technologies can make avoiding a repossession seem like a losing battle for many.
Instead of living in a state of fear that the loan companies will repossess and impound your car at any moment, many debtors can file for bankruptcy and receive legal protection from loan companies so that your vehicle, and other property, cannot be repossessed, at least until the case is settled.
DISCLAIMER: The following blog post is just advice, and you will be better served to call David S. Clark with your bankruptcy questions. This blog contains helpful tips and advice, but is not professional legal advice, and shouldn’t treated as such.
Need Bankruptcy Help? Call David S. Clark
Bankruptcy Issues a Stay Order on Repossessions
Often debtors complain about loan companies and the repossessors acting on their behalf for being mean, overly-aggressive, and demanding in their attempts to repossess a vehicle.
Though there is no excuse for the immoral behaviors that some repossession and loan companies use in attempts to repossess a vehicle, the unfortunate reality is that because these loan companies have a legal claim to the vehicle when loan payments are not made, they are permitted to make these attempts at possessing the vehicle.
As soon as an individual opens a bankruptcy case, however, an automatic stay is ordered on the vehicle. This means that creditors and their partners, legally cannot touch your vehicle at least until the bankruptcy case is settled.
Stay Orders and Repossessions
As soon as the court issues a stay order, the creditor has no rights to demand you hand over the keys to your car.
No matter how much they hounded you to have the car before you filed for bankruptcy, once the case is open the law is on your side.
Simply put, stay orders protect car owners from repossession.
Bankruptcy Temporarily Protects From Repossession
Though stay orders issued from bankruptcy case filings will keep a creditor from taking your car for a time, this is not necessarily a permanent fixture. These stay orders are put in place so that debtors can have time to work through restructuring their debt through bankruptcy without having to constantly fight off repo agents.
Because the purpose of stay orders is not to permanently keep creditors from repossessing your car, there is still a chance that at the end of your bankruptcy case, you may be required to give up your car in order to meet the requirements of the bankruptcy settlement.
Bankruptcy, though, gives you a chance to keep your car and legally protects you from any potential bullying or intimidation from loan companies.
David S. Clark, An Auburn & Opelika Bankruptcy Attorney
David S. Clark and his team have been helping Auburn and Opelika, AL residents avoid repossession through bankruptcy for years and have the experience necessary to advocate your case before a bankruptcy court and in the face of intimidating loan companies.
If you are facing repossession in Auburn or Opelika and are considering filing for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy, contact David S. Clark today.
DISCLAIMER: The above blog post is just advice, and you will be better served to call David S. Clark with your bankruptcy questions. This blog contains helpful tips and advice, but is not professional legal advice, and shouldn’t treated as such.
