If you rent your living space rather than own it, it is important to understand your options and rights as a tenant when you consider bankruptcy. Depending on many factors in your rental history and your financial needs, you may need to take very specific actions to receive all the benefits a bankruptcy offers.
Bankruptcy can help you get back on your feet, but it requires those who use it to follow specific requirements and guidelines to enjoy the full strength of its benefits. This means that those who use bankruptcy improperly or without professional guidance often create greater problems for themselves than the difficulties that brought them to bankruptcy in the first place.
Your landlord may be able to evict you, even if you file for bankruptcy to stay an eviction. In 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act changed the rules regarding evictions, giving landlords greater leverage to evict tenants, depending on the reason for eviction.
Bankruptcy may offer you the protections and relief you need, but it is very unwise to pursue these protections without proper guidance. An experienced attorney not only helps you understand all of your options and available protections, he or she may also help you defend your rights against a landlord who wishes to evict you despite filing for bankruptcy. In many cases, this guidance means the difference between successfully obtaining the help you need to get back on track and sinking further into debt with no place to live. Be sure to use all the tools you have to execute a bankruptcy successfully the first time.