Stack is a federally licensed trustee; he anticipates that in a few months, many people will need help with financial restructuring.
Stack is concerned with the stigma around insolvency. To be bankrupt or to undertake a consumer proposal is daunting to most people. (Having been through it some years ago, here’s the bottom line: a very welcome light at the end of that awful tunnel.)
“A lot of moral and social baggage comes with it. It’s somehow considered a moral bankruptcy as well, when in fact it’s just a legal process.”
Crushing debt is like being held in shackles, Stack said. “And there comes a point where people want to get out from under.”
He points to the timeline on a credit card bill that tells a consumer how long it will take to pay off card debt if only the minimum payment is made.
“So it says, like, ‘150 years’! And people think, ‘I guess I’ll be forever burdened.’”
Bankruptcy is not an “easy out” for the unscrupulous, said Stack. “I’ve never come across that mythical rapscallion,” he joked.
It’s also not a cure-all. You are still responsible for paying such debts as traffic tickets, student loans and alimony, for example.
“But once a person is in so much debt they cannot see a way to pay it back, it’s time to restructure and look at all the options,” said Stack.
A licensed trustee can help you organize what’s called a consumer proposal, which is less drastic than bankruptcy and usually permits faster credit repair. Anyone whose personal debt is not greater than $250,000 (your mortgage doesn’t count in that total) can do a proposal, but as Stack cautioned: “Only a federally licensed insolvency trustee can help you through a bankruptcy or consumer proposal.”
Source: – Toronto Sun
