Reviewing your credit report annually is extremely important so that you are aware of your current financial situation as well as checking if the information about your payments and debts is being accurately portrayed to the credit bureaus. People looking for a way out of the financial mess by filing for bankruptcy should make it a point to review their credit report before filing to ensure that all their creditors are included in the documents and schedules. As a part of the filing process, you are expected to list all your creditors. A simple mistake of omitting any one creditor just because you didn’t receive any collection notice from them recently, can turn into a big problem.
According to Sacramento based law firm Recovery Law Group, it is important for debtors to gather all their bills and show them to their bankruptcy attorney before they start the bankruptcy filing process. However, reviewing a credit report is important during bankruptcy consultation as sometimes you might not have all the information about how much you owe and to whom. It is important that you know what amount you owe before filing for bankruptcy.
More often than not, debtors are more concerned about big creditors while forgetting about other dues that they owe. Sometimes debtors might be unaware of how much they actually owe to various creditors. Reviewing the credit report can present a clear picture of the financial status of the client vis-à-vis how much money they owe. A free copy of the credit report can be obtained annually as a requirement by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Three agencies – TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian are responsible for creating the credit reports. Debtors can obtain a copy online through any of their secured websites. Once you have obtained your credit report, you can consult your bankruptcy attorney with respect to any dues you have forgotten to mention while filing bankruptcy papers. In case you are eligible, you might get a discharge on them.