Mississippi Consumer Help Blog
Can you get credit after filing bankruptcy? Absolutely. Will you have to wait for ten years to get a house or a car? Absolutely not.
Credit card companies will pack your mailbox with offers of credit. They want you back in the system using credit cards and carrying a large balance. It’s a temptation that few can resist. These cards and offers will be from lenders that will charge high interest rates. The same goes for cars and trucks. There are numerous companies that will be glad to give you credit. For a while, the question will be about how much interest they will charge you for that credit, which will be high until you’ve regained your footing.
Now, you shouldn’t run out and start charging up credit bills again, but if you need a vehicle or furniture and appliances you will be able to get credit. National creditors see people who file bankruptcy as a good credit risk since all their debts were wiped out, they can’t file Chapter 7 again for eight years and they have money to spend. Many Mississippi bankruptcy filers are able to reestablish their credit within one year of their bankruptcy discharge.
Another question I get asked a lot is some form of “How long will my credit be trashed because of the bankruptcy?” In most cases, your credit is already trashed before you come to see me. Filing bankruptcy will improve your credit. The misconceptions and misunderstandings about credit and the bankruptcy process would fill a garbage dump.
If you just sit back and do nothing and wait for your credit to magically improve on its own, you are going to be waiting a very long time. Re-building your credit score takes work. Not as much work as you would think, but it takes concentrated effort and it helps to have a plan.
I have a special instruction package for rebuilding credit that I give each one of my bankruptcy clients. If you follow my instructions and do the work, you can be back north of the 600’s within a year of filing a chapter 7. It does help to have some debts that you kept through the bankruptcy and are still paying – like your car or house note – so you have some positive, on time payments to assist the process. I have the plan, but the work is up to you.