What to do when a creditor sues or threatens to sue
Florida debtors who have their property seized by their creditors may still be sued for any deficiencies that remain. Creditors are allowed to sue people who still owe balances even though they have taken the property that secured their loans. If you owe a deficiency, your creditor is unlikely to stop trying to collect from you until it has received everything that is owed on the debt.
One way that you can stop lawsuits that are filed against you by your creditors is to file either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. When you file for bankruptcy, the court will issue an automatic stay, which is an injunction that prevents your creditors from taking further action to collect on the debts that you owe to them.
A bankruptcy stay applies to most types of debts, including medical debts and credit card debts, and it stops lawsuits that are pending against you or that may be filed. You may have heard of debt modifications, but they may be more costly than filing for bankruptcy, and some of the companies that offer debt modifications are scam operations, so you would need to be careful.
At Nowack & Olson PLLC, our lawyers help their clients to stop lawsuits before they are filed or after they are. We understand that many people are unable to repay their debts because of their financial circumstances, and we work to help them get new starts through bankruptcy discharges. Our lawyers help their clients to determine whether Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 consumer bankruptcies are more appropriate for their financial situations, and then they work to file the petitions quickly to stop further collection efforts. If you need more information, you may want to review our stop creditor lawsuits page to learn more about the services we might be able to provide.