Will filing bankruptcy ruin your credit? Hello, my name is Jeff Kelly. I’m a bankruptcy attorney. I’ve been practicing for about 22 years now. And in today’s podcast, I’m going to answer that question. Well, I can just tell you right out of the gate, my goal as a bankruptcy attorney, when I have a client come in and meet with me, when it comes to credit, my goal is to take any expectations that they have about credit and just beat them into the ground. I don’t want people to come into bankruptcy with false ideas. And there’s nothing worse than unmet expectations. So, I tell people, “look, we are about to take a big giant wrecking ball and it’s going to go clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk! Boom, to your credit when you file.” But the funny thing is, the people who I meet with, who seem to be most concerned about their credit are people who have already had their credit ruined by garnishments and judgments and I have a client – I’ve had potential clients out – I just can’t do it. I just can’t afford to wreck my credit and I’m looking at it at their credit report and I’m like, “you’ve got to be kidding me. Your score is 550, you have 10 judgments against you. You’re currently being garnished. They’re taking 25% of your income.” So I think what’s going on is a lot of people – it’s very common for people to make decisions that are just based on emotion. And when it comes to whether to file or not to file bankruptcy, emotion really has to go ...
Hello, this is Jeff Kelly and Today is August the 13th 2020. And today I want to talk about, are you legally liable for your spouse’s medical bills just by virtue of the fact that you’re married? And in Georgia as a general rule, the answer to this question is no. Now, this question usually arises when one spouse has suffered an extreme trauma traumatic event, like COVID-19, Corona hospitalization, cancer, diabetes, heart attack, or some other health catastrophe that forces a person to accumulate a large amount of medical debt. Earlier this year, I met with an elderly lady who for purposes of this illustration, we’re going to call her Marjorie Okay, now Marjorie, was about five feet tall, about 95 pounds, married to the same husband for over like 40 years. Supersweet lady worked so hard. And at one point in her life, she had probably at least $300,000 saved up in her 401k when her husband passed away, he had an insurance policy. But what neither one of them ever anticipated, was just the exorbitant through the roof cost of medical treatment. And he had a huge, long battle with cancer and ended up leaving behind this overwhelming mountain of debt. Now what did the sweet lady do? She did honestly what most people do, and she made payments for years and years, until there was no more money left from the 401k and no more money from the life insurance proceeds. This is tragic and horrible on so many levels. Because all of that life insurance and all of that 401k money should ...
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