If you decide that finding professional bankruptcy lawyers is the right option for you, you be aware of the long term effects this will have on your credit. The bankruptcy will remain on your credit record for ten years, you will lose access to virtually all credit for at least a couple of years, and you can expect to have to wait for three to five year to pass before you will qualify for a mortgage. Further, since your credit report is used by people other than lenders – such as potential landlords and employers – having a bankruptcy will look bad and will probably be held against you by almost everyone. However, realistically if you are in a position where bankruptcy is the best available option, then chances are you already have an awful credit record anyway, so it probably does not matter that much.

Assuming you file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, as opposed to Chapter 13 (which is more of debt restructuring plan), you can also expect to have any nonexempt assets taken by the court and liquidated as partial payment to your creditors. However, contrary to some conventional wisdom, this does not usually involve losing your primary residence or your primary vehicle, both of which are considered exempt. However, you may lose additional properties or recreational vehicles. If you decide to file for bankruptcy, you may want to consider liquidating your nonexempt assets before filing as you will likely receive more money for them and can direct that money the way you want to as opposed to letting the court make the decision.

Many structured finance arrangements involve transforming one kind of debt into another, more subtle form of debt. Often this involves the creation of a new corporate entity to act as holder of the new, transformed form of the debt. Such arrangements have the effect of dissociating or insulating the original owner of the debt in its initial form from the risk associated with it. Sometimes this dissociation from risk may be perceptual only, i.e. the underlying exposure may be no less great but, because of the opaqueness of many structure finance arrangements, this may not be apparent to outside observers. Since outside observers, through their buying, selling and rating arrangements, often exert a significant effect on a company’s bottom line, this perceived change in risk can result in real changes in the company’s bottom line.

Some financial commentators believe that structured financing arrangement, because of their lack of transparency, have the potential to create confidence problems in financial markets. Because lenders and investors cannot be certain of their true exposure to risk when they commit themselves to a particular company, they may simply play cautious and refrain from doing so, causing the wellsprings of credit to dry up.