Bankruptcy can be defined in several ways. In simple terms bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of a person or organization to pay their creditors. A declared state of bankruptcy can be requested or initiated by the bankrupt person or company, or it can just be requested by creditors in an effort to recoup a portion of what the company or individual owes them. However in the most of the cases the bankrupt individual or the organization initiates bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy has become quite common these days. There are several reasons behind it out of which the foremost and important factor is credit card payments and bank loans. Nowadays people are extremely burdened by the credit card bills and other loans that they take at the time of need. After a certain time these bills and the loan repayment amount start increasing day-by-day due to the interest charged over them. This makes it all the more problematic for the concerned person to finish off with his debts.
Therefore an individual should avoid taking loans and making credit card payments as much as possible.

In order to prevent the growing bankruptcy cases government has proposed a new law. This new federal law has made it clearly mandatory for any person opting for a loan to join a counseling session before six months of filing for bankruptcy. The law also states that people complete a financial education course before their bankruptcies are final, and credit counselors will have some of these courses.

This law has proved to be a great help to the people who confront the trauma of bankruptcy. But on the same hand it is a very expensive idea. People have to pay $50 for 90-minute counseling session.

Prevention is better than cure. So in order to avoid counseling and burden of loans etc. it is better that you plan your payments. This has become all the more important after the minimum payment for credit cards has increased.

However while seeking bankruptcy advice you should ensure that the advice is specific to your situation. Deciding where to go and what to do is another big issue like bankruptcy itself. But the fact is that a large number of individuals and businesses do not need to enter into a formal bankruptcy.

The usual time for a bankrupt to automatically be discharged is two years if it is the first time that you have gone bankrupt and unsecured creditors are less than20,000 and three years if unsecured creditors are in excess of20,000.

The main objective of bankruptcy is to convert your belongings or assets, and any salary you receive into lump sum and installment payments for creditors. The purpose of a debtor applying for his own bankruptcy is to form a moratorium (group of creditors) to have consent on partial repayment of all outstanding debts, and when the agreed repayment has been met, to have a 'clean slate'.

If you have your own house then you would be lucky enough to keep it. All essential household commodities but not TV's, video recorders, computers can be kept.