If you are living in Wisconsin and need help saving your home due to a foreclosure, call Miller and Miller today. With offices in Milwaukee, Germantown, and Kenosha our attorneys are close by for everyone in the Milwaukee metro area.  And if you don’t live in Southeastern Wisconsin, call us anyway as we serve all of Wisconsin.

If you need advice on how to save your home and you are living in Wisconsin, call Miller and Miller today.  With offices in Milwaukee, Germantown, and Kenosha we have an office near you.

If you live in Wisconsin and need advice on how to handle a foreclosure, call Miller and Miller today. With offices in Milwaukee, Germantown, and Kenosha, our attorneys are close by whether you live in Waukesha, Racine, or another part of Wisconsin.

Read it here.

If you live in Southeastern Wisconsin and are being badgered by debt collectors call Miller and Miller today at 414-277-7742. 

With offices in Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Germantown, we’re sure to be located close to you whether you live in Waukesha, Racine or somewhere in between.

 
Section 523 of the Bankruptcy Code sets out a number of situations in which credit card debt will not be discharged. Section 523(a)(2)( c) makes non-dischargeable consumer debt totaling more than $500 for luxury goods and services owed to any one creditor that are incurred within 90 days of filing, or cash advances totaling $750 or more owed to any one creditor made within 70 days of filing.

 
Section 523(a)(2) makes non-dischargeable debt owed to a creditor that was incurred by false pretenses or by fraud.

 
So to sum it up, Section 523 gives credit cards at least two arguments to challenge a Debtor:
1. Recent credit card use (within 3 months) for anything but necessities like food, clothing and shelter
2. Any credit card use in the recent past (up to a year prior to filing) if a Debtor makes charges where there is no reasonable expectation of repayment.

 
Here’s another way to think about it: If you have lost your job, and for the last year your only source of support are credit cards and cash advances, you should not expect to avoid a challenge by the credit card issuer just because you wait 91 days after your last use of your cards.

 
What, then, should you do if you need to buy food or gasoline in the weeks before you actually file?

You should recognize that shortly after you file, there is a very good chance that your credit cards will all be canceled and you are going to have to find another way to pay for your food and gasoline. A bankruptcy may eliminate old debt but it will not help you pay your current or on-going bills.

 
As a practical matter you are not going to want to spend the money litigating Section 523 dischargeability actions. Bankruptcy litigation is expensive and if you are scraping to buy food and gasoline, you will not be able to afford litigation. The fee you pay your bankruptcy lawyer will almost never include litigation.

 
If you are in Southeastern Wisconsin and are having trouble with your credit card debt, contact Miller and Miller today. We have offices in Milwaukee, Germantown, and Kenosha, making sure that whether you live in Racine or Waukesha, you have a office close to home.

Here’s a link to a worthwhile article by Jennifer Waters on a very common (and very important) question that our clients often ask: What can I do to help my credit rating after filing a bankruptcy? 

To discuss your credit repair and rebuilding options with one of our attorneys, call us today!

Four Wisconsin cities – including Wausau at No. 1 – are among the 10 communities in the nation with the highest average credit scores, a new survey shows.

Wausau residents posted an average credit score of 789 in the survey conducted by the credit-rating agency Experian. Madison was third, at 785; Green Bay sixth, at 780; and La Crosse 10th, at 777.

Milwaukee, with a score of 765, was 33rd of 143 cities included in the survey.

“Wisconsin residents remain among the nation’s most fiscally responsible,” Experian stated Tuesday in announcing the survey results.

Higher credit scores generally give consumers the ability to borrow money at lower interest rates.

Credit scores are based on a consumer’s payment history, debt balances and several other factors. Among those factors are how much of a person’s available credit is used, how long a person has had credit and whether late payments have occurred recently.

Wausau unseated Minneapolis, with the Minnesota city slipping to second in the annual survey with a 787 average credit score.

Rose Oswald Poels, chief executive of the Wisconsin Bankers Association, wasn’t surprised by the survey’s findings.

“The consumers in this state are generally very conservative with their money and smart about credit decisions, and that’s true of the financial institutions that serve those citizens,” Oswald Poels said. “I think it’s just the combination of the types of values and people we have in this state, coupled with the type of financial institutions that we have. We both share similar values in being fiscally conservative, hardworking and smart about credit.”

An executive with Wausau-based Peoples State Bank said he’s noticed before that many of the bank’s customers bring credit scores higher than 700.

“I think people here were raised in a conservative fashion, and they live the way their parents do,” said John Proulx, senior vice president for Peoples State Bank. “I think that probably is a big reason as to why we have the good scores.”

Overall, the survey found that Midwesterners have the highest credit scores while Southerners have more financial struggles.

Experian said that while no one factor determines a consumer’s credit score, the weak economy continues to cause major setbacks, such as foreclosures and unemployment. Those troubles were drivers in the rankings and trends for different regions of the country, the firm said.

Of the cities with top 10 credit scores, only San Francisco had a jobless rate higher than the national rate. Texas had four cities in the bottom 10.

The credit scores in the report were based on the VantageScore scoring system, which has a range from 501 to 990, in designated market areas from January through June of 2011, Experian said. The analysis was based on a statistically relevant sampling of Experian’s consumer credit database, the firm said.

“We have our issues just like any other city does. We have some foreclosures and things like that, but probably not as much as some of the other areas do,” Proulx said. “So some of that doom and gloom has hit Wausau, but it’s maybe not as prevalent in this area.”

Wausau Mayor James Tipple was proud of the ranking for his city, which has a population of 41,800.

“I think the quality of life and the people we attract to the region, and not only the region but the city of Wausau, speaks volumes for the score,” Tipple said.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy is most often an
income-based repayment plan. Your creditors are split up
into categories, so that secured creditors, like mortgage
holders and car note holders, get close to or exactly what
they are owed. But your unsecured creditors, like credit
cards, medical bills and late utility amounts, get a
percentage of what you owe them based on your income and
what you can afford.

A Chapter 13 is not strictly debt consolidation. It is a bankruptcy, which lets you pay for the things you want to keep, such as your home or car, while often paying much less to other creditors. In this way, you can afford to be in the bankruptcy, save your home or car,
and get a discharge of your other debts after completing the
plan. This should be balanced against continuing to pay
minimums on credit cards, with interest, for five years, to
see how a Chapter 13 bankruptcy can benefit even higher
income debtors or debtors who have previously filed a
Chapter 7 bankruptcy within the past eight years.