Hello, this is Roger Ghai, with Law Offices of Roger Guy. One of my areas of practice is bankruptcy law, which I’ve done for over 30 years now. And I wanted to speak this morning because we get a lot of clients who are asking us, “What does life look like after bankruptcy?” And a lot of times people are fearful that if they file a bankruptcy, they’re going to be forever tarnished economically, and that they’re not going to be able to make purchases of significant, such as a home or a vehicle, things of this nature. First of all, whenever you file a bankruptcy, especially Chapter 7, it does stay on the credit report for a total of 10 years.
But the whole process to file a 7 in the typical case is probably about four to five months. That is from the time he filed the case to the time you actually get the discharge from the bankruptcy court is about four or five months. Five months, let’s say. And then what happens after that is because you’re now debt free, then the creditors want to go ahead and start getting you back on that debt wagon again and you’re going to start to get a lot of slit solicitations from credit card companies for credit cards.
Obviously the offers aren’t really that great because they have high interest rates. And then you’ll also very commonly receive offers from car dealerships to go ahead and purchase a new car. So you want to stay away from some of those things and be wise with your money, you’ve just gotten out of a bankruptcy case. But I will say this, that if you go ahead and you start slowly and maybe get a secured credit card and you build that up over time, your credit score is going to increase significantly as long as you’ve got a job and you’re paying your bills after you filed the bankruptcy on time.
It’s very common for people who’ve been through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to qualify for mortgage within about 18 to 24 months of the filing of their case. And so filing a bankruptcy, although it’s not the best situation that you want to find yourself in, it’s also not like a permanent financial depth to you either. So if you have questions about this or concerns about filing a bankruptcy, just call my office at (770) 792-1000.