Corona Virus and Bankruptcy

Transcript:

Hello, this is Jeff Kelly and today is March the 4th 2020 and today I would like to talk to you about corona virus and bankruptcy. Now, when you first hear this title, you might be thinking to yourself, what in the world could Corona virus possibly have to do with bankruptcy? How could they be connected in any way, shape or form? And my answer is that our bankruptcy system will be crucial in assisting the citizens of our country in recovering from the economic fallout of the Corona virus. Over the past few weeks we have seen the Dow Industrial drop, about 12% and personally I think it’s going to drop a lot more. I am not a Financial Advisor. I am not giving financial advice to anybody, but I’m just telling it personally, I would not be shocked to see a drop to 16,000 before it’s over.

Now, if you go to my personal Facebook page, you will see actually that I did predict the massive drop right before it happened. And I think this Corona virus crisis is probably one of the most predictable that we have seen in our lifetime. And we have seen it coming and medical experts are saying that if you catch it, it can take as long as three weeks to fully recover. So, how’s that going to impact the average American worker? Well, most average people don’t get a lot of paid sick leave from work. So you know what’s going to happen to the average person that’s out of work for three weeks and they recover and they’re feeling good and then their spouse gets it. Or then, if they have children, a child gets it or an extended family gets it. And I think the bottom line is people are going to miss a lot of work and they are talking about shutting down schools, shutting down mass meetings. This is going to affect people; this is going to affect their jobs. And I do believe we are going to recover. We’re going to get through it. This is not the end of the world. The sky’s not falling. But a lot of people are going to miss mortgage payments and a lot of people are going to miss car payments.

So what happens when you miss mortgage payments and car payments? Well, typically in Georgia, you miss three mortgage payments and mortgage companies are going to start talking about foreclosing on you. The good news is they can’t do it over night. They’ve got to advertise your house in Georgia, in the newspaper for four consecutive weeks before the foreclosure date. So you do get notice; you do get time. Car payments, they can repossess your car if you’re two months behind and they don’t have to give you notice. They just show up in the middle of the night and grab it. But, the good news is that chapter 13 stops foreclosures and stops the car repossessions. We can pay the arrearages on a mortgage through the plan. We can pay a car through the plan. The other big issue that I think that we’re going to see, the other crisis is going to be medical bills. People that don’t have great insurance could be hit with ginormous bills because of this corona virus thing. If you have to go to the hospital for a week, that is expensive and if you don’t have insurance, Whoa. So banks are going to help a lot of people recover from that kind of thing. We can wipe out debt in chapter 13 the same way you can and in chapter 7. The difference is between 13 and seven is that there’s something we’re trying to pay for.

A lot of people like to refer to chapter 13 as the capture breath provision of the bankruptcy code. That’s for people who had gotten some money, they can make payments, they just can’t do it all tomorrow and they need more time. Contrast that with chapter 7. Chapter 7 is where you wipe out all of your debts and you get a new start. The other thing that I haven’t talked about yet is the quarantine idea. You could be perfectly healthy and take all the precautions in the world and not get corona virus and you could still be affected if there was a quarantine in your area and you’re not allowed to move; you’re not allowed to go to work. This is scary. I’m a little nervous about the whole thing, but, the bottom line is, we’re going to get through it and we’re going to have a great future for our country and we absolutely cannot, despair or give up hope.

We’re going to make it. And if there’s anybody out there who needs a free consultation with a bankruptcy attorney, you can reach me at 7708818449. We have office locations in Marietta, Kennesaw, Douglasville, Dalton, Cartersville, and Rome. I’ve got a website with some blog posts on there, kellycanhelp.com. I also have a podcast page, KellyBankruptcy.com, if you’re into podcasting. Again, if you’ve got any questions about bankruptcy, Chapter 13 or Chapter 7, please give me a call 7708818449. Thank you so much for tuning in.