Has anyone ever declared bankruptcy? Anybody a financial wiz?

I need some advice re: purchasing a car after bankruptcy (September of 2002 was the discharge date). Without specifics, it had nothing to do with credit cards, we were well in control. A medical thing happened, and well . . .

Feel free to PM me if desired, we don't all need to share our misfortunes (literally). If you'd rather just reply, I'm willing to answer most questions in the thread; after all, the word is out.

Thanks in advance

The reason of an already discharged bankruptcy is irrelevant.

I have filed bankruptcy - what is your question?

Can I get a loan?

On edit: If so, any suggestions?

regardless of the reason there are banks who will not lend to you and some who will. Those who will tend to charge higher rates. Your bankruptcy will stay on the report for 10 years from the time declared.

I work at FleetBank in a temp job, underwriting dept for equity and installment loans. I talk to people about this all day long. The first thing to do when you apply, before they put in the application (and thereby pull your credit report causing an inquiry),ask if your situation will cause an automatic turn down.

go to talk about filing for bankrupcty?

Thanks guys.

medical and credit etc.... all of it. You are going to have a bankruptcy on your record, you might as well get rid of all your debt.

i used to maintain over $250,000,000 worth of 2nd chance auto loans, so i think i may have some insight here ....

first the good news: yes, you most likely can get a car loan. most likely you cannot get an unsecured credit card, but with a car loan, the lender can always repo the car to cut losses. so car loans are certainly possible. provided you don't live in louisiana, that is. laws there make repos too easy to evade, so a car loan there is practically the same as an unsecured loan.

the bad news: you most likely will be paying the maximum non-usurious interest rate permitted by that state. this might be as low as 14%, or as high as 33% depending on where you will be registering your car. you can also look forward to getting screwed by the car dealer (even more than normal) because they know your choices are limited and they suspect you don't understand the whole 'money' thing, i.e., easy pickin's. i recommend selling your junker privately if possible, first. check out edmunds so you know what it's worth.

caveats: if you've already had a car repo'd, especially in the last 2 years, you will have a very hard time getting a loan, for obvious reasons. also, you're very likely to have to come up with 10% down (possibly with trade-in).

due to the high interest rate, you will be able to afford less car than you probably hoped, but you should be able to get something. if you have been on the straight and narrow since 9/02, then shortly after 9/04, you might try refinancing or even trading in whatever you buy now, as your credit score will be better after 2 years of good payment history.

good luck!

a co-signer can help tremendously. obviously the preferred solution would be that if you have a spouse/s.o. without a bankruptcy, just do it in their name. they hold the title, but you get to drive the car.

otherwise, a friend, parent, partner, etc. might co-sign, which would help tremendously because then they have someone with 'good' credit to go after. the catch is that the co-signer has to be willing to stick their credit rating on the line for someone who has declared bankruptcy, and even family might be reluctant to help.

VERY well off, and will probably be willing to co-sign (we're waiting for him to call us now).

Since he knows the situation that led to this, I'm pretty optimistic about his willingness to help.

on edit: Thanks--that's just the kind of advice I needed. We have been100% on the S&N since the discharge.

One more question, if you don't mind: how many "inquiries" before the red flag goes up? We definitely don't want to spoil our chances to rebuild our credit.

credit reporting agencys have your bankruptcy discharge papers. if you weren`t in trouble with your credit card company before the bankruptcy you shouldn`t have to much trouble getting a decent rate. if you file for medical reasons you shouldn`t be hurt to bad. but back to the credit report discharge deal..if you don`t send them the report won`t have your discharge-i found that out when i applied for a home loan..i had a good loan person who cleaned it up for me and i got the loan.....

since they don't actually ask that, but if he's very well off, then i'm sure he has a good income (including interest from investments), little debt other than mortgage (which is actually a plus), and most likely a clean credit history. you shouldn't have any problem with a co-signer like that.

again, though, you'll do even better if your brother-in-law just buys the car himself, and you work out a private deal with him to pay him back. the difference is that he can get a great interest rate, but you can't. if he's willing to do this, you can split the savings.

as for inquiries, usually 4 inquiries in 12 months is the limit before it starts to hurt your credit rating. there are some exceptions, though, for instance, any number of mortgage inquiries within a 2-week period counts as only 1 inquiry, as they assume you're just shopping around.