Credit After Bankruptcy

Opportunities for credit after bankruptcy and ways to improve scores

Almost all debtors receive credit after bankruptcy despite common myths to the contrary. Poor credit and no credit lenders discovered years ago that following a discharge, future filings become highly unlikely and most debtors actually improve their ability to mange personal financial affairs. As a result, many debtors significantly improve their credit score in as little as 12 months following a discharge, even though a Chapter 7 and 13 discharge may be reported for up to ten years. To ensure this improvement, all debtors should adopt a positive plan of action.

For anyone facing financial crisis, filing usually enhances credit reports immediately - it stops late payments, adverse reporting, collection efforts, denials of credit, frequent enquires from concerned creditors, and prevents lawsuits for collection. All of these events adversely impact credit scores. Once a case is complete, with careful planning, credit repair after bankruptcy should result in many favorable events, which in turn, must be reported and will result significant improvement in credit scores reported by the top 3 agencies. Anyone interested in how to repair credit after bankruptcy should know a little planning goes a very long way. When you understand which reported events result in the greatest improvement, and how to generate these reported events at will, you too will be able to greatly improve your credit score.

Shopping for credit after bankruptcy

The best credit cards after bankruptcy do not require security deposits or high application fees. When shopping for credit cards, consider a high application fee as a red flag that gives notice to all applicants that the fee itself is designed to produce profit. From the lenders perspective, the application process remains the same, with the same processes, procedures, and associated expense. High application fees are merely a thinly veiled attempt to over charge, and may or may not result in approval. The best lenders want applications that result in new customers, and tend to charge actual cost for the application process and offer competitive terms.

When qualifying credit cards after bankruptcy, expect to pay somewhat higher interest rates, yet still competitive with market rates. Most often, because fewer lenders specialize in low credit customers, also expect to spend a little more time, looking deeper into agreements, especially paying attention to late fees. The terms of default required for a credit card after bankruptcy should be substantially the same as for other cards. Otherwise, choose a different credit card company.

All federal and state regulations that apply to credit cards in general also apply to high risk, poor credit, low credit and no-credit cards. For more information regarding these regulations, see the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Truth In Lending Act, Federal Regulation DD, and state regulation of usury and deceptive trade practices.

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