Real Estate Asset Protection

Author: Ronald Edwards

The goals of Real Estate Asset Protection are:

Keep the ownership of the real estate anonymous. Anonymous Panama Corporations and Anonymous Panama Foundations do this extremely well; in fact better than any other jurisdiction we are aware of. Anonymous ownership of real estate reduces your profile as a target for lawsuits and collection attorneys can not go after something they do not know even exists.

If a structure of Anonymity is not practical the next best solution is to take away the attachable equity through the use of lawful mortgages and other encumbrances filed on the property locally by anonymous Panama Corporations or Foundations.

You should only use a Law Firm for asset protection so you have attorney client privilege. The law firm used should be out of the reach of the court where the real estate is located. If a lawyer in your country forms an offshore structure for you what are you going to do when he winds up in the lawsuit with you - defrauding creditors would be one possible allegation, or if he has the judge order him to open up his records concerning you. If you felt the courts, laws, judges, lawyers etc. in your country were fair and equitable you wouldn’t be reading this. Don’t make the mistake of using a law firm in another country which also has flawed privacy laws. The courts in his country will probably cooperate with the courts in your country.

As a last resort but still a valuable one the asset protection structure should present itself to your pursuing financial adversaries as so burdensome, onerous, confusing, time consuming and expensive that they will accept a settlement from you for a mere fraction of the debt in question. This is an often overlooked positive outcome that lets you keep your property and settle the debts for pennies on the dollar, sort of a bankruptcy without going bankrupt.

Detailed Information Follows:

Today many people in different countries are very worried about their real estate being lost due to court actions leaving them homeless or without their real estate portfolio. Real estate is not portable and unfortunately is one of the first things aggressive collection attorneys go after. Since the ownership of real estate in many jurisdictions is open and transparent, the real estate ownership rolls are often used to determine if a person has enough wealth to go after in a civil lawsuit, in other words it flags you as a target. Real estate ownership records are also used to accomplish identity theft since a lot can be learned about the owner from the public records like when the mortgages were taken out, from which company and for how much, the full names and addresses of the owners, etc. This information is then used combined with other public databases like driver’s licenses, phone and utility records etc. to create a profile of the victim which is used to steal their identity. Lack of privacy is invasive and also encourages litigation and criminal activity.

So how do you protect your real estate in as anonymous manner as possible? Some sample strategies are briefly described below.

Mortgages:

One real estate asset protection strategy is to borrow against the real estate using mortgages or trust deeds. Typically in most jurisdictions the borrowed money is not taxable as income since it must be repaid. Usually one can borrow up to 80% of the value of the house. Collection attorneys will not spend money to go after a house with 20% or less available equity. This is also true concerning government collection agencies. It is felt that auctions in the courtroom or on the steps of the courthouse will not bring in more than 80% of the appraised value since these auction buyers are looking for a substantial discount. One important point to be considered is the collection attorney may want to know where the borrowed money from the mortgage is to see if it is within his reach like in the country concerned. If the money is offshore they rarely will pursue it. They are not lawyers outside of their country and must retain local lawyers who usually smell deep pockets and charge high fees for this type of service which will rarely ever has a happy ending for them. The country where the money is may be hostile to such collection actions as is very often the case and makes it hard for these cases to be pursued. These countries often dismiss these cases for lack of venue or jurisdiction. Also the collection attorney from your country often has to post a cash bond to cover court costs if they lose which again deters such actions. The potential problem with the above scenario is now you have a mortgage on property that may have been free and clear. You need to go through a credit check and reveal personal information much of it will wind up in public or semi-public databases like credit agencies databases. Now you have to make the payments and pay the interest rates. There are usually penalties involved if you terminate the lease early. Many of these loans have variable interest rates which can go up and now you have a blood sucking Mortgage Company on your property title. There is a better way.

Your own Mortgage Company:

There is nothing wrong with borrowing money from an anonymous Panama Bearer Share Corporation that to protect its interests places a mortgage on your property. You basically write a mortgage through your corporation to yourself to record on the title of the property you wish to protect. This requires a lawyer in the city where the real estate is to advise you as to how the mechanics and local laws will work when recording your mortgage and pertaining to it. You may need to fund an escrow in the area where the real estate is in some countries to validate the mortgage, but there are work arounds for this as well. After the escrow closes the loan is recorded against the property tying up the equity in the property reducing your profile as a target greatly. You could make the loan at more than 80% of the value like 99% if you so desired. The corporation or an additional corporation could be used to make a second or even a third mortgage. Of course your borrowed money is not taxable and but you do need to make payments with interest to your own corporation. This is a real loan. If one researches you or your real estate they will see encumbered real estate and someone thinking of suing you may think you are not worth the time and expense which is one of our goals. If someone does try to levy or auction your real property they will have to pay the mortgage off from any auction or sale proceeds and if the amount of the mortgage (LTV- Loan to Value) is at least 80% of the appraised value a sale for enough money to pay off the mortgage will be extremely unlikely thus they will not bother spending the legal fees and auction fees. Auction buyers are price buyers, not people looking for a certain home in a certain school district etc. Remember the Panama Corporation owning the mortgage has no listed owner anywhere so it is impossible for ownership to be looked up by a potential financial enemy sizing you up. In any event the obstacle of the mortgage makes normal collection actions immensely more difficult for them if they should try to pierce through the corporate veil. Panama corporate veils do not pierce. They do not know this is your mortgage and that you own the corporation that wrote the mortgage and the only way of finding out would be to take your deposition and ask you. Well for all they know you don’t own the corporation, perhaps you did and transferred the ownership, or they might assume you would lie and they could not catch you in your deception, or they may assume it is owned by a friend or relative or whatever else comes into their mind. You are not responsible for their thoughts; this is something they do all on their own. One thing to be perfectly clear on is now collection costs for your financial adversary has now gone up, way up and the person going after your assets has some decisions to make as to how much money they want to spend. The collection attorney is going to be anything but encouraging because he is now in an environment that he does not understand – welcome to the jurisdiction of Panama Counselor. He is going to tell your financial enemy that more money is required to pursue this, in the back of his mind not really wanting to pursue this and if he does have to do it he is going to want to get paid big time. When lawyers do not want to do something they charge a lot. Now if the attorney gets into it and finds out the corporation ownership is non-transparent and soon discovers that Panama has tight bank secrecy etc. he will become more frustrated and this means higher fees for your financial enemy. What will the other side do if a Panama Private Interest Foundation owns the Corporation and you can legally say you do not own the Corporation? Panama Foundations really have no owner so you could also say you do not own the Foundation. Welcome to Panama Mr. Collection Attorney. You are not responsible for providing the other side ownership details of a foundation or corporation that is their problem. You can say you do not own the corporation or foundation and that is where it stops as far as you are concerned. Folks when they see a Panama Corporation or a Panama Foundation on the mortgage they are more than likely to drop it right there because they know they are spinning their wheels and will more than likely never get anywhere and spend a ton of money getting nowhere. Remember the collection attorney doesn’t deal with Panama Asset Protection scenarios everyday, or even every decade for most of them. He will see things as a brick wall, blind alley, etc and not know what to do. Remember the attorney that is doing the collection can be sued by his client for frivolously spending his client’s money and running up a big bill when chances for a positive return are most unlikely.

Line of Credit Mortgage:

There are other ways of protecting real estate assets where no actual funding of a mortgage is required. A line of credit is set up through a Panama Financial Institution that records a trust deed based on the size of the line of credit. This is very similar to what finance companies in the USA do with home equity lines of credit. This also requires you to retain a local attorney in the area where the real estate is located to ensure that proper papers are filed with the local government registry. The line of credit need not be drawn down upon, yet it can still be used to protect your real estate equity, or boat equity, car equity, airplane equity, art collection equity etc. The line of credit can be cancelled at any time by you and within 30 days the mortgage on the property will be released. There are safeguards put in place to ensure you have control over this.

Real Estate Asset Protection Annuity:

Another way to protect real estate or other assets is through the use of an annuity. Basically the anonymous Panama Corporation or anonymous Panama Foundation would receive your real estate or other assets in return for an annuity. The annuity pays you a certain specified sum of money monthly, quarterly or yearly. The money can be paid into a secure Panama Bank account even in the name of another Panama Foundation which is acquiring and protecting assets for you to retire on and for the eventual benefit of your beneficiaries. So if you were asked in a lawsuit in your home country why you transferred the real estate to this Panama Corporation and what consideration did you receive for the transfer, you reply the transfer was done in return for an annuity of so much money per month for as long as you live, or 5 years or whatever you decide for a term. Now they say where is this money paid thinking about garnishing it. You say into a Panama bank that my Panama Private Interest Foundation maintains think dead end for the collection attorney. If the sum is paid monthly the collection effort is so costly compared to the reward you could even have the annuity money paid into a bank account in your home country. They are not going to go do a new collection action each month, and if they did well you could change banks, or use a Panama Bank and withdraw the money with an ATM card.

WARNING

It is common to see entities selling asset protection structures using trusts and other vehicles that are located in the countries that have done away with privacy and fairness in the courts. These are the countries where they judges do what they want, judgments awarded are staggering high, the lawyers run legal bills up on the people until they can no longer defend themselves because they are broke, etc. If you own property in such a country and use an attorney who is also in this country or another country like this you are at serious risk. Why. For a lot of reasons.

One reason is the attorney client privilege in these countries can be broken by judges if the judge feels the lawyer was actively involved in some illegal deed with the client such as concealing assets from creditors, fraud, legal misrepresentation, money laundering (using overly broad definitions of money laundering these countries are fond of with extremely small amounts of money involved), or fraudulent conveyance of assets to a trust or other entity to remove them from the reach of creditors. The lawyer has to listen to the judge. Especially when the other side is saying “Your Honor the defendant is going to hide the assets again and cost my client thousands of dollars all over again”. When the lawyer hears this he starts thinking if he appeals the judges decision etc, and fights back real hard the next step is the other side is going to sue him for conspiracy to defraud the creditor. You see the lawyers are most aware of the perverted justice system in their country and they are scared of it coming back and biting them. The bottom line is they are going to be thinking well if I give this guy up (you) to the other side they’ll be happy, I’ve already got my fees paid, the client is going to be penniless and then what the heck can he do to me. When privacy is gone, the lawyers have a field day. REMEMBER even if the lawyer sets up an offshore structure for you he is still in your country and his records can readily become fair game in the discovery process and wind up in the hands of the court and even get recorded in the public court records as evidence. This means your financial enemies do not have to go offshore to pierce your corporate veil, trust foundation etc., they can do it right in the convenience of their backyard. This is a temptation and temptation encourages litigation. You should have a law firm in the jurisdiction of your offshore asset protection structure (the corporation, foundation bank account) so they will have enforceable attorney client privilege, corporate and foundation anonymity, bank secrecy and a privacy oriented court system to help them protect you.

These lawyers in the countries where privacy and justice are gone tell clients their asset protection methods are tested, secure etc. Try asking them what it costs to pay for the legal defense if the other side decides to “test” the asset protection strategy. Probably the bill will be enough to cause you to want to settle or give up. Then ask him if he does appeals and what they cost. If you lose a court case you usually have to post a bond equal to the amount of the judgment to keep the property during the appeal process.

More on Lawyers:

The obstacle is you have a physical asset in the form of real estate and the courts there can assert jurisdiction over it, which means take it away from you. What is going to work best is to keep the asset ownership anonymous before trouble starts. If your potential financial enemies or actual financial enemies do not know about an asset they will not attempt to confiscate it. If they do know about it then you must have some form of plausible deniability to show the judge why you can’t turn it over to the court. One good way to do this is to use financial instruments like mortgages since the judges don’t want to start upsetting the apple cart and get all the banks alarmed over some judge setting properly recorded mortgages aside. This is why we suggest using a local lawyer to record the mortgage, you do not have to make this lawyer aware of your entire asset protection strategy, nor give him all the documents just provide him with as little as he needs to know since he may be subpoenaed or have his deposition taken in a worst case scenario. For overall legal counsel in the jurisdiction where the property is contact another lawyer whose name will not appear anywhere relating to recording the transaction to make sure he does not get dragged into court and he can give you advise relating to taxes, legality, collection process, correct title, release of deed or mortgage, transfers etc. We are talking about a worst case scenario where assets are in the millions.

Banks are powerful politically and economically and they will pay careful attention to any judge setting aside mortgages unless there is a clear cut fraud involved with complete documented evidence so the judge will need to tread carefully on this fragile ground less he wrecks the security of the mortgage industry in his country. This is stronger in our opinion than just relying on a trust which judges love to bust open as frivolous or fraudulent with intent to defraud creditors. Please bear in mind nothing is one hundred percent perfect.

Planning Before Trouble Knocks:

Of course if you are planning before trouble is breathing down your neck as you should be doing, just putting the real estate in the name of an anonymous foundation or corporation is going to go a very long way in protecting your assets. If you are not in a lawsuit presently and have no judgments no one can argue that the transfer was a fraudulent conveyance to avoid creditors’ efforts to attach your assets.

If the property showed up on a credit report due to the mortgage company reporting the transaction, the collection lawyers chasing you will probably see the credit report and query you as to what happened to the property, did you receive any money for it or other consideration, where is the money, what happened to the money, did you transfer it for below market value and why, who owns it now, etc. Hypothetically for purposes of making a point to follow about collection attorneys in general, one could say they sold the property and the money was put in a Panama Bank Account and the money has been spent or gambled away, and the bank account was closed and you never had the bank send you statements which is common in Panama, so you have no bank statements and you banked online using the banks online banking system. Well the corporation public registry and foundation public registry do not reflect ownership at all and the Panama Banks will never respond to the collection attorney - never acknowledging or denying the existence of any such bank account since it would constitute a violation of bank secrecy laws with civil and criminal penalties. We are not saying you should do such a thing which would be illegal and we do not advocate illegal activities but what we are saying is some people do such things and the collection attorneys know that the people they pursue are in the habit of lying to conceal assets and they do not rely on the truthfulness of their clients to find assets. If they did that they would go out of business in short order. The collection attorney needs to work within a legal system that let’s them play their games and Panama does not let them work their craftiness at all. So you have a reasonable chance of seeing the collection attorney abandon pursuit when they see real estate titled to a Panama Anonymous Corporation or Foundation. They don’t plan on you being honest and open with them and they don’t have a clue as to how to proceed in Panama dealing with an anonymous corporation, foundation or bank secrecy. Their subpoenas are worthless and they are wondering how they are going to factually prove to a judge in the country where the real estate is that you really own property that is recorded in the name of an anonymous corporation and foundation in Panama. Even harder for them to think through is how to prove to a judge that the mortgage recorded on the real estate is through a corporation or foundation you own or control in Panama and that the judge should just set aside the mortgage and risk harming another entity when the lawyer is missing any concrete evidence to support the allegations. Remember the burden of proof is not on you, it is on the collection attorney. To make it worse what if you are not in the country where the real estate is or otherwise out of the reach of the court where the real estate is or maybe you just are not available for service of court papers. Well now the collection lawyer can’t even ask you any questions to make his case. Imagine him telling the judge he couldn’t serve you but he is sure you really own this property because at one time you did own it and the judge should just turn the property over to the creditor in absence of any evidence. What if the judge tells the lawyer to go contact the corporation or foundation in Panama? So we as your resident agent get served. First off the service will not be legal in Panama but we wouldn’t want to get the judge mad in the country where the real estate is so we contact you. If you tell us ok tell them whatever they want to know and I will pay for your time we would do so. On the other hand if you do not wish for us to reveal anything we would at your direction either not respond or just respond that we are bound by attorney client privilege from disclosing anything and asking us to do so without the permission of our client is illegal under our laws and their court does not have the authority to direct us to break the law and suffer the consequences in our country which are most severe. By now the collection attorney is spending a whole lot of his clients’ money and they are getting frustrated. Suppose they hire an attorney in Panama and try to get a court order. Forget this. Panama has 400,000 corporations registered here because they know the courts will not cooperate. The court will most likely throw the case out for lack of venue, lack of jurisdiction of the Panama Court and not comply with requests for breaking attorney client privilege. In terms of piercing the corporate veil, they are no ownership records to subpoena and of course remember transfers of ownership are not recorded and even the lawyer who formed the corporation has no idea who the new owners are, or how many times the corporation was transferred. All the owner need do is give the new owner the stock certificates with no recording of the transaction. Panama is set up for privacy and asset protection.

There are a number of scenarios we can structure to asset protect your real estate, boats, planes and other assets. We are a law firm - you have attorney client privilege, give us a call.

http://www.panamalaw.org/real_estate_asset_protection.html

http://www.panamalaw.org/anonymous_real_estate.html

http://www.panamalaw.org/panama_mortgage_investor.html

For more information, please visit:

http://www.panamalaw.org

email at: panamalegal@hush.com

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/real-estate-asset-protection-82139.html

About the Author

The author is a researcher, with years of experience in finances and real estate.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.panamalaw.org
email at: panamalegal@hush.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

Start a Dog Training Business

Author: Lisa Paredes

Do you know how to make dogs behave? More importantly, do you have the patience and know how to teach dog owners how to train their dogs appropriately? A dog training business may be the right business for you if you:

- Love dogs and understand how to work with them
- Have worked with dogs and animals before
- Have some experience training dogs
- Enjoy working with people
- Like the idea of helping dog owners manage their pets and treat them better

How to Start a Dog Training Business

Of course, there's more to starting a pet-based business than simply loving animals. When you decide to make a career of training dogs, you are taking on a responsibility for handling other people's pets responsibly and ethically. Most professional dog trainers suggest that you need 3-5 years experience working with an experienced professional dog trainer before you can put out your own shingle and take on your own clients.

Alternatively, you can seek out and attend a school that offers a dog training certification course. There are a number of pet training schools across the country. You can expect to pay about $2,000 for the instruction, but it will cut the learning curve for starting your own business considerably.

Starting Your Own Business Training Dogs

There are a number of other considerations you'll need to take into account when you decide to step out on your own. Among the things you'll need to get started are:

- a place of business with sufficient room to handle the dogs and their owners

- insurance to cover any damages or injuries that happen at your place of business

- equipment for training dogs, including treats and any other items used in training

Other Skills You Need for a Successful Dog Training Business

The best dog trainer in the world still needs other skills in order to start a successful pet service. Among the other skills that are vital to running a successful business are:

- Record-keeping and accounting skills

You'll need to be able to keep track of customers, appointments and billing in order to manage your business well. If you're not good at that kind of organization, you might hire someone who can take care of booking appointments and managing bill collections.

- Advertising and marketing skills

You'll need to publicize your new company if you want to get any business. Word of mouth only goes so far, especially when you're new. If you're not sure about your ability to market your business, sign up for a course on marketing, or join a professional society of dog trainers to get the benefit of networking and experience.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/start-a-dog-training-business-892885.html

About the Author

Mommy Empire is dedicated to helping moms succeed with their work at home business. Be sure to check us out on the Web for more home business ideas and other home business topics!

Popularity: unranked [?]

Peer-To-Peer Loans And Student Loans

Author: Thomas Winn

Small time entrepreneurs and individuals found a cheaper option to finance and start their businesses online. With banks offering high interest in loans, credit investigations and onerous amortization obligations, online communities raised money and lend it to complete strangers. This is called Peer to Peer lending or P2P.

Peer to Peer lending is a type of "social lending" wherein the lender would bid money to finance a loan application from a struggling entrepreneur from a different country or any prospective person with reasonable need to acquire loans. These loans are needed to start up a business, finance a significant project or help a third world person to start at business and become productive. Voluntary investors pool the funds, send it to the online marketplace like http://Prosper.com, MicroPlace, Zopa or Kiva and delegate the collection process to a collecting agency and charge them with rates lower than what banks offer minus the administrative process.

Loans are divided among lenders and payments are sent directly to the P2P sites which then distribute the money to lenders and report non payments to credit agencies or collection firms. Formal arrangement seems to make people more conscious about repayment terms without any bank involved in the process.

It started when consumer's started to doubt financial institutions capabilities of helping them alleviating from loan payments with high interest rates and therefore, their ethics was being questioned. The maverick online companies' attitude toward this predicament is if they can get this done cheaper between ourselves, what do we need a bank for?

There are two variations of Peer to Peer Lending on the Internet, the first one is Online Marketplace model and Family and Friend Model. The marketplace model of peer-to-peer lending connects borrowers with lenders through an "auction process" in which the lender who offering the lowest interest rates "wins" the borrower's. Some loans are packaged and resell the loans but ultimately, they are sold to different individuals.

The "family and friend" model lets go the auction process and concentrates on lenders and borrowers who already have prior knowledge of each other and formalize an online collaboration and debt servicing. The advantage of the "market model" benefits the borrower with its match-making aspect to the lender that offers the lowest interest rate for loans. These loans are unsecured and therefore, risky.

Lenders charge enough to cover defaults in payment and still profit from the investments. There is also a strategy of repayment which is shame. People who borrow repay real world co-ops because they fear losing face among peers. Their objective, therefore, is to make their small business profitable and regularly repay the loans to conduit collection agencies.

The peer to peer lending process uses "social computing" phenomena such as internet blogs, podcasts and participation from online volunteers to match borrowers with prospective lenders. Loans become cheaper as a result while lenders can earn more from other investments. Many investors believed that they get higher returns from 11-13% returns without much management while borrowers get lower rates and less hassle.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/peertopeer-loans-and-student-loans-294243.html

About the Author
Thomas Winn is a freelance writer for many small financial blogs. For more information on peer-to-peer loans, please visit FiLife.com.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Credit Card Debt Settlement! Is It A Scam Or Can It Work?

Author: Stephen Bis

I have been working in the credit card debt settlement industry for over a decade now and have been working in the financial industry for over twenty years. My mission with writing this article is to offer debtors a heads up on credit card debt settlement companies also known as debt negotiation companies. I will provide you with the advantages and disadvantages of a credit card debt settlement program and what to look out for when speaking with a rep from one of these organizations to help you get out of debt. Before continuing I want to inform you that this will be somewhat of a long article and by the conclusion of it my goal is for you to understand how the debt negotiation/settlement process works in case you don't already know and I would like you to fully comprehend the techniques of companies out there that do not honestly have your best interest in mind. 

For starters I would like to say up front that this process of debt settlement as your means to consumer debt relief isn't for everyone, some debtors are more suited towards bankruptcy and others simply don't have the proper state of mind to go through this method.

A great place to start is for me to offer you the understanding of what debt settlement is and how it works. The intent of a debt negotiator is to work out a debt settlement for you on the current debt balances you owe towards your creditors. As an example you might owe one particular creditor $10,000 so the goal of the negotiator would be to have you end up paying back no more $6,000. The two primary advantages of completing this program are to save money on what you currently owe your creditors and to save time. By merely continuing to pay just the minimum payment with even a moderate APR you will be looking at somewhere around thirty or more years to finally become debt free, with a reliable credit card debt settlement program you will be out of debt within two to three years or sooner depending on your present financial state of affairs and how much you can afford to set aside each month.

Now you must realize these are tremendous benefits but as with most things in life there are drawbacks, not a single thing in this world is perfect and a credit card debt settlement program isn't any different. First off your creditors won't be willing to work out a debt settlement whatsoever if you are current and up to date with your monthly minimum payments. They would like you to remain on their credit treadmill for the next three plus decades and pay them well over five times the original balance in interest alone. So you need to fall past due on your payments to place the creditors into a position where they will be willing to negotiate a settlement. After you cease paying them the ball game quickly changes and they will then be significantly more open to talking in the terms of negotiating a settlement.

Without really having to say, for some folks the starting point of this process will have an adverse effect on their credit rating; for people who have already fallen behind the negative effect won't be any different than it already is. The unfortunate thing is for some debtors this will be the deterring factor that prevents them from entering into debt settlement making them a financial servant to their creditors for the next three decades. On a positive note this negative effect doesn't have that long-lasting of an effect, in fact once the settlements get worked out your credit rating will begin to rebound and increase in score. This is because more than 30% of your credit rating according to MyFICO is made up by how much debt you owe. However if you are trapped in a terrible debt situation even if you are up to date with your payments your score is more than likely not all that good to begin with, and besides when stuck far in debt your priority should be set on how to escape this debt problem as rapidly as possible, not on your capability to accumulate more debt.

Now by falling past due on your monthly payments you must realize that these creditors aren't just going to roll over and play dead, they will be attempting to call and collect the debt. Some people don't find this to be a problem whatsoever, but for others it may be, hence why I stated in the second paragraph this process won't be for everyone and the debtor must be in the proper mind set. From my years of assisting debtors there is no rhyme or reason to how many calls you will receive, some clients of mine rarely get calls while others receive them on a daily basis. Something to remember is that no company has the power to by law stop the calls, so any organization that tells you they can is strait up lying.  Only a law firm handling the negotiation process has the power to stop the third party collectors.

As you can now tell, like I said earlier there are advantages and disadvantages, but if you can deal with the disadvantage's you will be quickly on the path to financial freedom and will save a large amount of cash in the process. Now to get to the meat of the matter and why I titled this article "credit card debt settlement scams".

We here in the United States over the last few years have been going through an extremely negative downward spiral with our economy. Thus placing many consumers in a compromising position financially, leaving boat loads of people left holding the bag with large sums of credit card debt. So understandably this opened up a much bigger market for credit card debt settlement. A lot of fly by night companies have been sprouting up all over our country, tons of which are ex mortgage brokers who offered unwary consumers awful mortgages and helped force them into this nightmarish position in the first place. Now I use the word scam which can take on a couple meanings, while yes there are some companies out there that are outright scams and have no intention of doing any work for you at all, most of the times that is not the case. The problem lies when companies simply do not give prospective clients all the facts on how credit card debt settlement works nor do they truly place them on a plan for success, which I will get to in a minute.

One usual problem that many debtors have with debt settlement companies is they don't fully disclose to them about how the process works in detail both the good and the bad, instead they sugar coat things and just go on and on about the tremendous benefits of saving money and time. I have talked to numerous amounts of debtors who have enrolled with companies and had no idea they would be falling behind with their creditors and will be receiving collection calls. So needless to say this turns into a big problem once they begin the process.

Another bad habit tons of these companies have is deceiving consumers into the amount of savings they will be receiving on their debts. Some companies are claiming to save you more than 70% of what you currently owe. Now while occasionally they may get settlements this low what their choosing not to inform you about is how much you will be saving once you have A) paid them their service fees, and B) paid back the creditors. Honest and reputable companies will quote you on what your true total savings will be. If you will save somewhere between 40-50% of what you owe including their fees and paying the creditors than that is very good. One more deception is many of these companies will try and guarantee a definitive amount of savings, if you hear this run for the hills. NO one in this industry can honestly guarantee a certain amount that is why it is called DEBT NEGOTIATION! They are negotiating to get a settlement for as low as they can get. 

Then there are the organizations who will allow you to pay however much you can to get enrolled into their program. These are the worst because they do not honestly have your best interest in mind and are fully aware that they are setting you up to fail and not succeed. You must realize to obtain the kind of savings I mentioned above this program should last no more than 36 months, ideally two or less. And the bottom line is some debtors realistically cannot get the program finished in that time frame and should seriously be looking into bankruptcy. What these un-reputable consumer credit card debt settlement companies will do is place you on a plan for 4 or more years and basically take whatever payment you can afford. With full understanding that you aren't going to be saving much of any money and will more than likely not graduate the program, all they are concerned with is collecting fees and that's all. An honest company will meticulously review your budget with you and ensure you this is a plan that you can manage, as well as completely explain to you both the advantages and disadvantages of doing this. And allow you to make the choice as to whether this is the most ideal consumer credit card debt relief method for your current financial state of affairs.

One more extremely good way to research a company is to make sure they are a registered member with the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and that they are in decent standings with little to no complaints. And if there are complaints make sure they were resolved to the clients liking.

As I mentioned above I have been in this industry for over a decade now and currently I work for an outstanding debt settlement law firm with an amazing track record and an outstanding record with the BBB. If you would like an honest evaluation of your current debt situation to see if this is the correct plan of consumer debt relief for you than click the link below in the signature file and fill out an application. I will explain in tremendous detail how this program works and whether you are an ideal candidate. I hope after reading this article you feel more educated and enlightened as to how this process works and what to watch out for when you are interviewing companies to potentially assist you with credit card debt settlement.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/debt-consolidation-articles/credit-card-debt-settlement-is-it-a-scam-or-can-it-work-1939214.html

About the Author

Stephen Bis works as a research analyst and debt counselor for the nations largest credit card debt settlement law firm.  The firm helps consumers make an educated and responsible decision on how to handle their debt situations.

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Business is all about ups and downs and many a times there is blockage in the flow of income. There can be many reasons because of which your business is not making predicted profit. It happens so in the case that the business is in the initial phase of expansion or the customers are not paying bills at proper time. Whatever may be the exact cause, the assets don’t prove to be enough for paying off the bills and the business debts start accumulating. In the worst case, being the head of a business firm, you start spending hours in exploring the way outs to pay off the debts. The precious time that you should spend with your customer, you start managing the things and the situation becomes quite uncomfortable.

When you feel yourself trapped in the vicious circle of debts it’s better to go for business debt management without thinking anymore. When a customer adopts for business debt management, the first stage is to approach a Credit Counseling Agency (CCA). The debt management plan is a sort of mutual agreement between the borrower and a CCA. Business debt management program is quite flexible in its terms and conditions. From the point of view of the customers this plan is quite lucrative as there is no such contract involved. A customer has got liberty to modulate the repayments according to fluctuation in his/her income.

The most advantageous point with a business debt management plan is that if the client feels comfortable in repaying all or some portion of debt he can exactly do so. For this the debt management companies will negotiate over full or partial settlement with your creditors. What a customer is exactly supposed to do before entering into a debt management plan is to manage your income and expenditure. Afterwards a customer is just supposed to pay a fixed monthly installment to the debt management company.

In a nutshell, business debt management is appropriate for the business firms which are not running smoothly. In turn the debt management companies are paid a fee to provide the consultancy. The choice of the agency has a long term effect so just be careful in making your opinion. Just opt for business debt management and take your business to a new high!

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