Tag / killen landau & associates

by peter

Graduating into Debt

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Getting a student loan can be double-edged sword. Many kids can’t afford a higher education without one. But the downside is that a lot of students are graduating with huge debts that they many find hard and in some cases impossible to pay off.

The problem of student debt in Canada is on the rise. According to a September 2013Globe and Mail article,  accumulated student debt is now more than $15 billion nationally, and perhaps as high as $23 billion, if you take into account credit card debt, lines of credit and provincial loan programs.

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by peter

Will I Lose My House in a Bankruptcy?

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This is a post that I wrote for the Killen Landau & Associates blog, which seeks to deal with people’s worst fears when dealing with a personal financial disaster.

The fear of losing your home is a powerful one. When their finances go south, many imagine that bankruptcy will leave them homeless. Is this fear justified? Not really, or not in the normal course of a bankruptcy.

Yes, when you go bankrupt, you give control of your assets to a trustee in exchange for getting rid of your debts. This, in theory, could mean that the house gets sold to help pay back the creditors. But in practice this rarely happens, mainly because it is not in the best interests of everyone involved. The trustee has a lot of discretion, which he or she generally uses to safeguard the rights and interests of both the creditors and the debtor. Selling the house outright usually doesn’t achieve this purpose. So what normally happens? . . . Read more.

by peter

Surviving the End of the World

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The fear is eating away your stomach lining. You can’t sleep. You can’t concentrate. You feel like a failure in the eyes of the world.

The envelopes of the unopened bills have changed to new ominous colours. The days you could juggle minimum payments between credit cards is coming to an end as you reach your limits.

You stop answering the phone calls for fear of bill collectors . . . and then the phone stops working altogether.

Many people come to Toronto bankruptcy trustees gripped by the worst fear of their lives. They are looking at the end of their world, and who could be complacent in the face of that?

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