Posted On: November 17, 2014

We’re often asked by people who consult us: “Whom do you work for, the creditors or me?” The answer is: neither and both. To do our job properly, we need to work with both parties.

To be clear, a bankruptcy trustee is an officer of the court. We are licensed by the the Superintendent of Bankruptcy to act in a fiduciary capacity for all the participants, whether in a bankruptcy or a proposal. Fancy words, but what it means is that we are there to protect the interests and legal rights of both the debtor and the creditors.

So while we don’t in fact work for you, we do work with you to ensure that you can find the best solution for your circumstances.

When we first get together, during a free consultation at Richard Killen & Associates, we will ensure that you understand all your options. The most important thing we can do here is explain what the probable consequences will be for each of the options available to you. Only a trustee can do this comprehensively and effectively – probably because the trustee is the one who will be doing the actual work involved.

If you decide things will go forward after the free consultation, we’ll do all the necessary paperwork to get things started. After that, we will work with you and your creditors to administer the process in a way that is fully compliant with the law, so that you – and the creditors – get the full protection of that law.

So, even though the trustee doesn’t actually represent you the same way a lawyer or other professional does, he provides you with the best protection the law can supply and ultimately gets you to the destination you were seeking when you made your decision in the first place. That’s a lot to pack into a free consultation, isn’t it? Call Richard Killen & Associates and find out more.

Posted On: October 9, 2014

Do you have a consumer proposal that you are struggling to pay and you are wondering “What happens if you default on a consumer proposal”? As a rule, it’s not good to default on any kind of debt.

A proposal for an individual – most commonly called a “consumer proposal” – is one of the two ways of addressing a severe debt issue under the Canadian Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The other, of course, is bankruptcy.

Using the services of a Licensed Insolvency Trustee, like Richard Killen & Associates, a consumer proposal is a deal that you strike with your creditors to pay back part or all of what you owe, according to your means, either through a lump-sum payment or, more likely, a series of monthly payments. As long as you make the required payments, your creditors can take no action against you.

Once all the payments are made, you are freed from the spectre of your debt.

However, what happens if you miss some of the payments agreed upon in the proposal?

Since the proposal is a legally binding agreement, this would be a serious situation. If you fail to meet the terms of your proposal, especially by missing three months of payments, the consumer proposal is annulled automatically. (You can miss up to two payments without triggering the consumer proposal annulment. The missing payments will be tacked to the end of your term.)

And what happens after a consumer proposal is annulled? Well, your creditors are free to once again start collections and/or take legal proceedings against you. And you may be faced with bankruptcy.

If you start falling behind in your proposal payments and you know that your shifting financial situation is going to make it hard to make them up, then you need to see your trustee and review your situation. You might be able to amend the proposal and solve the problem that way. You might have other options, but you’ll need to see the trustee. He or she can tell you what you need to know.

But fair warning: if you amend your consumer proposal, it will mean that your original one no longer applies. Your amended proposal will have to go through the creditor approval process again, and if your creditors refuse the amended version, you cannot just go back to the original terms.

This is why we at Richard Killen & Associates believe it is critical that we sit down with you at the beginning of the process and work out reasonable terms for a consumer proposal. That is the only way you can have peace of mind knowing that you are getting your financial life back on track – one payment at a time. If you are at the point where you are asking what happens if you default on a consumer proposal, it’s time to talk to a licensed trustee before you default.

Posted On: July 25, 2014

If you don’t live in Egypt, being in denial is a bad thing.

Most of us carry some form of debt, whether it’s a car loan or a credit card balance that we just can’t manage to pay off this month. But when does debt load become dangerous?

Well, one sign is when you don’t want to think about it and are kept up nights with stomach-twisting anxiety. The problem scares you so much you put your head in the sand and keep spending as usual.

If you think you have a problem, you probably do. But here are 10 more telling signs that you are sinking too far into a financial morass:

1. You frequently pay bills after their due date, incurring secondary notices and penalty charges.
2. Creditors are calling about unpaid bills.
3. You regularly bounce cheques and overdraw your bank accounts, causing you embarrassment and triggering bank penalties.
4. You use one credit card to pay the balance on the other, or use it to pay other bills or to buy necessities.
5. You pay only the minimum balance on credit card bills.
6. You’ve been denied credit because your debt ratio is too high, or need a co-signor for a loan because you are too much of a risk by yourself.
7. You hit up family and friends for loans to make ends meet.
8. You don’t know how much debt you’re really in, because you’re afraid to hear the number.
9. You hide purchases and debt problems from your family, or you fight a lot with your spouse over debt issues.
10. An unexpected expense, such as a car repair, sends you into panic mode.

Of course, just not thinking about money problems, or running way from them, doesn’t work. They always manage to find you. The best way to deal with them is head on, using the advice of a trusted expert. At Richard Killen & Associates, we can lead you through the appropriate responses to your particular situation, whether it is debt consolidation, a consumer proposal or bankruptcy.

Contact us for a free consultation – it will be the most stress-relieving call you will ever make.

Posted On: June 22, 2014

Hi. I’m Richard Killen from Richard Killen & Associates. Richard Killen has offices across the GTA. One of the most frequently asked questions I get as a Licensed Insolvency Trustee is, “If I go bankrupt or do a consumer proposal, will I lose my home?”

Well, probably not. Sounds evasive, doesn’t it? But it isn’t really. A bankruptcy or a consumer proposal is a legal process, so there are no guarantees. But my experience is if they want to most people keep their homes in a bankruptcy or proposal.

The problem is, people hear so many misleading things out there that they shy away from consulting a trustee like Richard Killen & Associates. They shouldn’t, because a trustee is the only one who can tell them what will happen in their specific case.

So call Richard Killen & Associates today for a free consultation at our office nearest you, 888-545-5365, or visit us online at killen.ca. It may be the most stress-relieving call you ever make.

Posted On: June 16, 2014

People often ask, what is a consumer proposal what is the consumer proposal meaning or definition and how similar is it to a debt consolidation loan? A proposal is like a consolidation loan where your payments are made affordable and downgraded into a single monthly payment term. You can make the payments to a trustee who accumulates them and pays the money out to your creditors every six months.

Consumer Proposal Meaning & Consumer Proposal Definition

A proposal is a debt settlement agreement that you can do with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee.

The thing about it is that it does not necessarily involve paying back 100 percent of what is owed to the creditors. Many times the total amount owed can be reduced by 50% or more. It involves making a new deal with creditors so that they get paid to the best of your ability.

The major difference between an informal arrangement with creditors and a proposal is that the latter has the protections that are built into the law. You are protected by the law until it is determined that the creditors will or will not accept your proposal. They still have the option of turning you down but no one can take legal action against you. However, if you are under an informal agreement, the creditor who does not approve with the arrangement can still sue you, garnishee your pay and seize your assets.

What happens in the proposal?

A consumer proposal can be a solution to avoid bankruptcy if you are having difficulties with your debt payments. Your trustee will review your situation with you and help you determine the best payment term for your financial problem. The settlement will depend on your income and personal assets. The term can cover an interest-free payment of up to 5 years which can lead to bigger savings. A consumer credit proposal can work with various unsecured debts such as bank loans, tax debt, and credit card debts as well as student loan debt.

How will you know that you are eligible for a consumer proposal?

First of all, you need to make sure that you can make payments for a portion of your debts. Secondly, your assets must be of lesser value than your debt which shows the reason why you are not able to keep up with the payments. You must also be a resident of Canada to qualify. Take note that a proposal is regulated by the federal government and you must comply with all of the requirements.

What are the benefits of Consumer Proposals?

Aside from being able to avoid bankruptcy, it can help you save money by reducing your debt by a significant amount and by stopping the interest rates. This way, you can keep your properties. You also do not have to make multiple payments—this will combine your debt into a single monthly payment. Besides, your creditors will have to follow your terms and stop wage garnishments. This is instant protection from the creditors and collection agencies who must stop chasing you for payment.

A CP can be the most effective solution for your financial situation. Legal consumer proposal services can only be provided by a Licensed Insolvency Trustee or a licensed consumer proposal administrator. They will help you understand your debt relief options and help you manage your debt problems. You can book a free consultation with a trustee.

Now that we have answered the question “What Is a consumer proposal?”, you now have a much better understanding of the consumer proposal meaning where you pay only a portion of the debt owed with no interest versus a debt consolidation loan where you pay back 100% of the debt owed, plus interest.

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The fear of losing your home is a powerful one. When their finances go south, many imagine that bankruptcy will leave them homeless. Is this fear justified? Not really, or not in the normal course of a bankruptcy.

Yes, when you go bankrupt, you give control of your assets to a trustee in exchange for getting rid of your debts. This, in theory, could mean that the house gets sold to help pay back the creditors. But in practice this rarely happens, mainly because it is not in the best interests of everyone involved. The trustee has a lot of discretion, which he or she generally uses to safeguard the rights and interests of both the creditors and the debtor. Selling the house outright usually doesn’t achieve this purpose. So what normally happens?

Well, there are many different scenarios. If you have no realizable equity in the house – equity is the amount you’d get selling the house after deducting the mortgage and other associated costs – there is no point in  selling the house, because all the money would just go to pay off the mortgage(s). In this case you get to keep the house as long as you keep paying your mortgage. The trustee doesn’t get involved.

But, what if you did have some equity, say roughly $20,000? To keep the house, you would have to pay the trustee this amount, because that’s what the creditors would have received if the house had been sold. So the creditors end up getting their fair share and you keep your house.

Yes, but if you had $20,000 to throw around, you wouldn’t be bankrupt in the first place, right? Well, you would have to raise the money, but the trustee would work with you to accomplish this. For instance, you might be able to get the money through a second mortgage. Or you could work out a direct monthly payment plan with the trustee. In either case, you would keep your house.

Where things start to get more complicated is if you have a significant amount of equity in the home, let’s say $100,000. In order to hang onto the castle, you would have to pay the trustee 100 large – a whopping sum, but not impossible and financing is usually obtainable.

But, in such a case you probably would want to explore the legal alternative to bankruptcy: a consumer proposal. If you go this route, you don’t risk losing the house. You simply offer the creditors a settlement, negotiated by your trustee under the protection of the law. Most often this solution satisfies everyone because it pays the creditors an acceptable sum while allowing you to escape the debt quagmire in an orderly and manageable way: win-win.

There are a couple of other points to understand when you’re dealing with the house question.

The first  is that in all these scenarios the trustee will remind you of your right to get advice from a lawyer of your choice, someone who is there to protect specifically your interests. This is your basic legal right, but it becomes much more important if you have a lot of equity in your home. A good lawyer will help you deal with the situation and probably get you a better deal from the trustee and creditors than if you were doing this on your own.

The second point is that you should ask yourself: Whether I go bankrupt or not, can I afford to keep the house? If I try to hang on to it will it just drag me back into debt trouble down the line?

This is a tough one. We tend to be emotionally attached to our house in a way that we aren’t with most other things, even our cars. But, we have to ask ourselves this question if we’re going to regain control of our finances. The trustee can help you better understand your situation, but the answer to this question can only come from you. And you need to be brutally honest with yourself about it.

So, to get back to the original question: “If I go bankrupt will I lose my house?” For most people (the vast majority) the answer is “No!” So don’t be afraid to consult a trustee because you’re worried about losing the house. Contact us and get the facts. Remember our TV commercial: “It may be the most stress-relieving call you ever make.”

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If you are coping with severe debt problems, you have five choices to deal with the crisis: Get a consolidation loan, try to negotiate with your creditors, run away, do a consumer proposal, or go bankrupt.

The first three options you can handle yourself (we don’t recommend trying to run from your problems; they have a nasty habit of catching up). Personal bankruptcies and consumer proposals are solutions governed by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, and they can only be handled by Licensed Insolvency Trustees.

So why would you choose one of the legal solutions over the other? Well, every person’s case is different, so you need to come into a trustee to get advice tailored to your particular situation. But painting with broad brushstrokes, a bankruptcy is a faster and less expensive process, whereas a proposal may protect more of your assets and save your name from being associated with bankruptcy.

With a personal bankruptcy, you are released from your debts after you comply with certain duties. It’s a process that can be over in as little as nine months. Some of your assets would be exempt from this legal process – such as furniture and personal effects – and others would be handed over to the trustee and be used to repay creditors.

This latter category could include houses, high-worth cars, jewelry and certain RRSPs. Also, if you have an income over a certain set amount, you would have to pay 50% of this surplus to creditors, probably lengthening the time you were discharged from the bankruptcy.

A consumer proposal essentially reorganizes your debts. If the proposal is accepted by your creditors, you only have to make one manageable payment a month to the trustee. The length of term for a consumer proposal is five years or less, depending on fast you want to and are able to address your obligations. But generally speaking, it’s a longer more expensive process that a bankruptcy.

With the proposal you avoid the ‘stigma’ of bankruptcy and get to keep all your assets, providing you make your monthly payments and don’t slide into bankruptcy anyway. You may also want to consider a proposal if bankruptcy would also force your spouse to follow the same route, or if you are expecting to receive a large sum of money down the road.

Also, with a bankruptcy, you must complete a monthly budget for all income and expenses, as well as supply copies of your pay stubs to the trustee. If your income goes up during the period of your bankruptcy, then your surplus payments would also increase. With a consumer proposal, there are no monthly reporting requirements.

Posted On: June 13, 2014

It was a perfect storm of personal and professional misfortunes. Bryan was a successful independent marketing communications consultant, well respected in the business with a good network of friends. But in his late 50s he discovered that he had adult attention deficit disorder (ADD), with a host of problems, ranging from an inability to focus to poor organization skills and depression. After years of laboured compensation for the symptoms, he felt the copying structure he had carefully built begin to fall apart.

Then he lost his biggest client. With the onset of a deep depression, he found it harder and harder to do work and make up for the lost income. He started to drain his savings and line of credit to stay afloat.

He took a consolidation loan. The Canadian Revenue Agency called about missed tax installment payments. He had to ask for a personal loan from a friend to pay for a month’s apartment rent. He spent a Christmas without money to buy presents. He missed a bank loan payment.

“It was the lowest ebb in my life. I felt like a complete failure,” says Bryan in his quiet voice. “My parents were alive at that point. They berated me for my financial mismanagement. My father had been a bank manager. He told me that if I went bankrupt I would never be able to get credit again.”

With this sword hanging over his head, and not much hope to propel him forward, Bryan went to an assessment with Richard Killen. He may have gone into the meeting with intense sense of “embarrassment” at winding up in this precarious financial position, but he was soon reassured to learn that his problems were manageable.

After a detailed evaluation of his situation and going through the ins and outs of a consumer proposal versus a bankruptcy, Bryan felt the latter  would best suit his situation. The instability of his income at the time would have made it difficult to commit to the monthly payments a consumer proposal would demand. But the most important thing was that the decision was his to make. This helped put him back in control of his financial life – a luxury he had not experienced in a long time.

Almost immediately Bryan felt a surge in spirits knowing that the burden of debt would be lifted. “It was this huge sense of relief,” he recalls. “I was told by Howard that when the phone rings, just to give them his name and number, and he would take it from there. When the bank called the next week, they were very matter of fact and nice about it when I told them. It was just business for them.”

Filing for bankruptcy in 2003, Bryan was able to keep his car, since he used it for work purposes, as well as his personal assets. And he didn’t have to pay any portion of his income to creditors, since it fell under the legal threshold set  in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

During the bankruptcy, he attended the mandatory credit counselling sessions held at Richard Killen & Associates. At the same time, he underwent treatment for his ADD, getting it under control with therapies that included learning the complex body motions of the martial arts.

Nine months after filing for bankruptcy Brian was discharged and able to make his life anew. What about his father’s dire prediction that he would never get credit again? “Evenbefore I was discharged, credit card companies were calling me and offering me credit.  I applied for a Royal Bank Visa after discharge and have never missed a payment,” he says.

Since then, Bryan has gone from strength to strength in his life. The return of his self-esteem has enabled him to rebuild his business. He has co-founded a company that will create  a smartphone app to help kids with ADD. He is poised to take his third-degree black exam in karate. He has downsized and simplified his life to better protect him from financial vagaries and to minimize the disorganization associated with ADD.

Bryan adds with pride, “It’s a great feeling to get your life back and become a fully contributing member to society again.”