If you are currently feeling the heat from creditors who may be attempting to contact you at home or at work, you may be feeling increasingly desperate for some sort of relief. In some cases, people who are drowning in what feels like increasingly overwhelming debt find that they are able to give themselves a chance to get back on their feet by filing for personal bankruptcy. Once you initiate a bankruptcy case, a period called the automatic stay takes effect, and during this period, some of your creditors are not going to be able to hound you any longer.
According to LendingTree, bankruptcy’s automatic stay gives you at least temporary protection from some, but not all, of your creditors. While it is not going to give you financial relief from child support obligations or pension loans, for example, it may grant you relief in a number of other notable areas.
If you are losing a percentage of your wages to a garnishment, for example, the garnishment is going to cease while your bankruptcy case remains ongoing. Similarly, if you have water, heat or electrical companies hounding you and threatening to turn off your services, they are typically not going to be able to do that to you while the automatic stay is in effect.
Bankruptcy’s automatic stay may also give you temporary relief against eviction or foreclosure, depending on circumstances. If you are renting your home, your landlord is not legally able to evict you during the automatic stay period unless he or she already had a judgment of possession before you filed for bankruptcy. Similarly, if you are facing foreclosure, your creditor is generally not able to foreclose on you while the automatic stay is in effect unless that creditor is successful in having the stay lifted.
