August 28th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
Petition Preparers sound like a good bargain until you realize that they can’t give legal advice.
If you are considering bankruptcy, chances are you hard pressed for cash. One place you better think twice about bargain hunting excessively is your bankruptcy filing. If you’ve done any research on bankruptcy, it is likely that you have seen that you can actually file for bankruptcy yourself. Another method is to hire a Petition Preparer simply to fill out the paper work on your behalf. Choosing a method besides hiring a quality bankruptcy attorney is likely to be quite a headache, and it probably won’t be all that you had hoped for.
The first problem with using a petition preparer is that they cannot offer you any legal advice. This advice includes telling you the best bankruptcy type for your situation, telling you what assets and debts to list, and telling you what property to exempt. There have been cases before where people filed the wrong type of bankruptcy, because they did not have the advice of an attorney. These people surely cost themselves a lot of time and money, because they were ill-informed about the bankruptcy process.
Another issue that could arise is that the court could tell you to file your bankruptcy petition again, because something is done incorrectly. If you need immediate relief from some of your debts, this could cause a serious problem. You might not be able to stop creditors from taking action against you, or you could have property taken if it is already in foreclosure. Attorneys get things done right the first time, because they have substantial knowledge of bankruptcy laws and practices.
If you are making all of the decisions in your bankruptcy case, you might miss lesser known laws or statutes that could cause you serious trouble in the long run. For instance, you might not know that credit card purchases you made leading up to your filing could be considered fraud. What if one of your family members had to give the court the money that you just paid them for a loan that they let you have? Situations like this happen all the time, because individuals are not familiar with all of the rules that they need to know.
Well, the ultimate decision is yours, but you should seriously consider having a bankruptcy attorney on your side. An attorney can save you a lot of money and headaches throughout your bankruptcy filing. Please contact a Dallas-Fort Worth bankruptcy attorney today to find out what other advantages an attorney can offer you.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
View all posts by Reed AllmandSubscribe
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
