By Ryan C. Wood

One of the most frustrating challenges bankruptcy lawyers and other legal professionals face is obtaining accurate information from clients or other parties.  During a free consultation we will discuss your income, expenses and assets to determine if bankruptcy can help your circumstances.  What if you do not know or are not sure about something?  Well, that is going to significantly change the answers to your questions.  Some things are more important than others, but not knowing how much money you make each month or whether your name is on title of a house will create huge problems.

For example, we recently had a client come in for a free consultation.  One of the issues in this person’s case was whether they were on title to their parent’s home, on the mortgages or on both or vice a versa.  Initially this person told me they were only on the mortgages.  Okay great.  We discussed whether they had ever made a mortgage payment, whether they had ever paid the property tax or contributed to the down payment to purchase the home.

Unfortunately it turns out this person was not only on the mortgages but on title to the house as well and they were on title and the mortgages from the time the house was purchased.  Now wait a second, this is going to change what we had originally discussed during the initial free consultation.  Bankruptcy attorneys can only base their answers to questions upon the information provide and if the information provided is not accurate the advice or answers will not be accurate either.

How hard is it to understand that if you do not know your financial circumstances how can anyone else?  One of the first steps in getting out of financial difficulties is to review your income and expenses in detail.  Look into what your assets are worth.  Then sit down and start making the hard decisions about how to spend your income.