Writes and edits PayoffPath. Not a lawyer, not a credit counsellor and not a financial adviser: the work here is reading the primary sources - the U.S. Courts statistics tables and the official bankruptcy forms, the CFPB, the FTC, the eCFR and the Federal Reserve - checking the date on every figure, and setting it out in plain English. There is no professional review behind these articles, and the site says so rather than implying a credential it does not have: where a decision turns on your own circumstances, the page points you to the court, the agency or the attorney that can answer it.
Waiting periods run from discharge, and 62.8% of the 608,511 cases filed in the year to June 2026 were Chapter 7. Which clock most buyers are actually on.
The free program issuers do not advertise, what to say on the call, and why only 1,333 of 92,805 federal card complaints are about being unable to pay.
14.35% of credit card complaints close with money against 0.13% of collection complaints, 113.6 times. Which is an argument for negotiating before the sale.
Reaffirm, redeem or surrender - plus the variable nobody mentions: the repayment chapter is 82.1% of consumer filings in one district and 8.1% in another.
You keep it if the equity is exempt and you stay current. Plus the districts where 82.1% of consumer filings are the chapter that can cure mortgage arrears.
There is no dollar limit: you are measured against your state median over a six-month window. Seventy thousand dollars passes in 28 of 55 jurisdictions.
The full pro se Chapter 7 sequence: prerequisites, documents, forms, fee waiver, and the four cases where self-filing goes badly. Plus the district data that decides how routine your case…
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