Welcome to the Howard Hayes Bankruptcy Cambridge Site

One expression I've heard a few times that I was reminded of today is "filing bankruptcy relieves you of your debt, it does not relieve you of your spending habits". It's certainly worth some thought. Filing a bankruptcy or a proposal can clear your debts and get you back on track, so it's important to maximize your chances of having a fresh start.

If you filed either a bankruptcy or consumer proposal, you'll be required to attend two counseling sessions with a qualified credit counselor. These sessions are provided for you under BIA (Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act) guidelines and have to be done with a qualified professional counselor that passed the CAIRP National Insolvency Counselors Qualification Course.

Here at Hoyes, Michalos & Associates in Cambridge, I'll help you to set up those appointments with either Glyn Bickford-Jones who works for Credit & Debt Services or Anthony Benedetto, who works for The Family Counseling Centre of Cambridge and North Dumfries or. Both are excellent counselors and highly experienced.

At the first session, they'll discuss money management, spending and shopping habits, warning signs of financial difficulties and, obtaining and using different types of credit. The second sessions expands on the first and also includes discussions on the causes of your insolvency and developing a future plan. At no extra charge, these sessions, we believe in very strongly are a vital part of the process of filing for personal bankruptcy or a consumer proposal.

The sessions with Anthony or Glyn are on an individual basis and they both take the time to ensure the sessions are valuable to you regardless of reasons that may have lead you to file a bankruptcy or proposal.

I believe that, not only are the sessions of great benefit to you, they form an essential part of the process of filing for a bankruptcy or proposal.

If you'd like to talk about credit counseling or ways to help reduce your debt load, call us at 519-622-3773 to set up an appointment to meet me, or email me your questions. We offer a free, no obligation consultation service.

What does it mean to co-sign a debt? Make sure you understand before you take on the responsibility. By co-signing, you are being asked by the lender to guarantee repayment of the debt. The same reasoning applies to applying for a joint loan/credit line/credit card too. Be sure to think it through before going ahead. If the primary borrower does not pay back the debt, you will assume responsibility to have to. Be sure you want to have this responsibility and that you could afford to pay it back if you had to.

In most cases you'd have to pay back the full amount including any interest and penalties if the primary borrower does not pay. Being joint on a debt does not mean you're only responsible for paying half the debt as the other co-signer has to pay the other half, this is not true, you're both 100% responsible to pay back 100% of the debt. You may also find that the lender will report the status of the loan on the credit reports of both the primary lender and co-signer and as such you'll both be affected negatively if payments are not maintained.

The lender will collect this debt from you. In some cases, the lender can request payment from the co-signer, without first trying to collect from the primary lender. If in default, the lender can and most likely will collect the debt from you using the same methods that they'd use against the primary borrower, such as taking you to court, repossessing pledged collateral and, garnishing your wages.

Filing a consumer proposal or an assignment in bankruptcy will relieve the person who files of the obligation to pay the debt. The co-signer, if not filing a proposal or bankruptcy would still be responsible to maintain payments. That is one reason why a lender would be reluctant to remove a co-signer from responsibility for the loan as they know if one of the two borrowers files for bankruptcy, the other would still be responsible for the debt – they double their chances of having the debt repaid. If neither borrower could pay for the debt, both would have to file separate bankruptcies or proposals in order to be relieved from the debt.

I you are unable to meet your debt repayments, including and debts you have co-signed for, please call us at 310-PLAN or email me your questions.