Debt
Settlement Florida
Florida homeowners and businesses
with outstanding debt use Debt Settlement
as a cure
Tallahassee, Florida December
2, 2007 - - Due to a softening
economy amidst the credit lending crisis,
the frequency of financial hardships is
increasing in Florida. Being tapped out
of their equity, many Florida homeowners
seem to be more incapacitated in finding
options to finance their debts. Yet for
Florida consumers and small business owners
that are overwhelmed with high interest
credit card debt and unbearable minimum
payments, debt settlement may find the right
medication. Also called debt negotiation,
debt settlement is known to provide superior
debt elimination results, especially in
the Sunshine State where laws are more favorable
for debtors.
The powerful debt settlement bankruptcy
alternative has helped Florida debtors reduce
their total debt between 30-70%. The majority
of debt settlement graduates have remarked
on “being debt free in one to three
years.” But before you decide on debt
settlement, you need to consider the following
credit, collection, and legal concerns associated
with this debt elimination procedure:
The Credit Concerns:
By far, bankruptcy could cause the most
negative impact on your credit. The same
goes for a consumer credit counseling debt
management plan (DMP), which can negatively
affect your credit for 5-7 years, plus for
seven more years after completing the DMP.
Like any other debt management option, debt
settlement also has a potential downside
on your credit. Then again, if you’re
like most debtors who have a high debt-to-credit
ratio and you make the minimum payments
on time, you can also hurt your credit for
many years.
In the early stages of a debt settlement
program your credit can be affected because
in lieu of making the regular monthly minimum
payments, you are personally saving money
each month to settle your actual debt with
the creditor. As a result, the creditor
can report that you made a “late payment”
to the major credit bureaus.
Late payments are part of your consumer
credit history, which is 35 percent of your
credit score. On the other hand, the “total
debt” that you owe is 30 percent of
your credit score. Thus, since the objective
of debt settlement is to “clear”
your debt, the final results of a debt settlement
can realistically improve your credit score.
The Creditor Harassment Concerns:
Another drawback to debt
settlement is the likelihood of creditor
harassment. But in Florida, collection laws
are highly favorable for consumers. This
makes “stopping collection calls”
a relatively minor concern for the Florida
consumer.
To help a debt settlement client fend
off creditor harassment, debt settlement
companies use the Cease and Desist letter.
Although in some cases, this legal document
cannot stop it’s been useful in decreasing
creditor harassment.
Upon receiving the Cease and Desist letter,
the third-party collection agency that collects
on behalf of the original creditor must
stop calling you. The Cease and Desist letter
does not apply to the original creditor
although some do abide by it. However in
Florida, the Cease and Desist letter also
applies to the original creditor. This gives
a Florida
debt settlement company more power to
help a debt settlement client not only to
reduce the frequency of collection calls,
but also more importantly, to completely
stop creditor harassment.
The Legal Concerns:
Probably the greatest concern in considering
debt settlement is the possibility that
a creditor may take legal action to collect
the full balance of your debt. No debt settlement
company can guarantee that a creditor may
not try to take you to court. But debt settlement
normally eases legal concerns since debt
settlement companies only accept “uncollateralized”
unsecured debts. These are debts such as
credit cards, signature loans, collection
accounts, and medical bills that are generally
settled out of court jurisdiction.
Florida debt settlement clients have even
less legal concerns since they also have
wage garnishment and homestead protections.
In most, states, if a creditor is wins a
judgment, they can try to collect the debt
by executing a wage garnishment or property
lien. A wage garnishment, which is exempt
if you’re self-employed, can force
your employer to set aside a percentage
of your wages each month until full payment
of your debt is satisfied. However, Florida
is a wage garnishment exempt state. This
means that your wages cannot be garnished
in this state under any circumstances.
Another common judgment creditor collection
procedure is to execute a property lien.
This procedure could cause you to pay back
the creditor with any proceeds from the
sale or refinancing of your property. Property
liens can be an effective collection strategy
since judgment creditors know that homes
will appreciate in value, thus the proceeds
from the sale of a home will proportionately
increase, thereby increasing the chances
for a judgment creditor to collect on a
judgment. But in Florida, property liens
are rarely pursued because Florida homeowners
have a 100 percent homestead protection
on their properties.
In summary, debt settlement clients in
Florida have full protections against creditor
harassment and are exempt from having their
wages garnished or losing their homes due
to a property lien. Less liability and legal
recourse for the Florida debt settlement
client also means there’s a greater
incentive for creditors to settle delinquent
debts in lieu of collecting through the
courts.
Benefiting from Florida’s more liberal
collection laws, debt settlement clients
of the national debt settlement company,
Debt Free League have had great results.
On a national level, the company, which
boasts a “50% or better debt settlement
track record”, settles the vast majority
of their cases. Their debt negotiators have
been quite effective throughout the country
negotiating out-of-court settlements with
credit card companies, collection agencies,
and legal firms. They help many families
and small business owners in states like
California, which has more stringent collection
laws. But Florida has been an exceptional
success for Debt Free League clients in
settling their outstanding medical, credit
card, and business
debts.
About Debt Free League
Debt Free League is a Debt Settlement organization
that works on behalf of consumers and small
businesses to negotiate the settlement of
unsecured debt. Working through key relationships
with creditors, collection agencies, and
collection attorneys throughout the country,
their Debt Liquidation Program has produced
substantial unsecured debt reductions and
a variety of credit improvement benefits
for many clients.
For more information, Contact
Debt Free League’s Web site at www.debtfreeleague.com
Contact:
Sales
sales@DebtFreeLeague.com
(800) 213-9968
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