Negotiating With A Creditor

Are you negotiating with a creditor to try to lower your debt?  Some people do this because they can’t or don’t want to file bankruptcy.  However, negotiating yourself without an attorney can cost you a lot more money than an attorney would cost.

A current client who I’ll call Barb (not her real name) wanted to reduce her debt substantially and hired me to negotiate that for her.  Barb’s mother had loaned her $17,000 to pay a large portion of the debt.  Just before contacting me, Barb put the $17,000 in her bank account.  When I began negotiating, Barb’s creditor asked to see Barb’s bank statements and pay stubs in order for Barb to show that she couldn’t afford to pay the debt in full.  I was able to greatly reduce Barb’s debt anyway, but this huge deposit made it a lot harder, and I could probably have lowered the debt even more if Barb had not deposited the money.

Another client who I’ll call her Judy (not her real name) offered monthly payments to her creditor before contacting me.  Judy didn’t even consider reducing the principal balance, and didn’t realize that she would have to pay the entire amount that she offered if her creditor accepted her offer.  Judy’s creditor took weeks to respond to her, and she contacted me thinking that they were not going to do so.  I sent an offer to the creditor, but they claimed that they accepted Judy’s offer in the morning before they received mine in the afternoon on the same day.  Regardless of whether they were telling the truth, this caused a major problem with the negotiations on Judy’s debt, because an accepted offer like Judy’s creates a binding contract, and Judy’s creditor wanted to hold her to it.

If you want to negotiate a debt, contact an experienced attorney today.  An experienced attorney can get you a much better deal than you will get yourself, and you risk costing yourself a lot more money by trying this on your own.