{"id":5000,"date":"2022-01-26T14:51:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T19:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westbrooklawgroup.com\/?p=5000"},"modified":"2022-01-26T14:51:52","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T19:51:52","slug":"attorney-brent-westbrook-talks-about-bankruptcy-knowing-your-rights-and-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westbrooklawgroup.com\/2022\/01\/26\/attorney-brent-westbrook-talks-about-bankruptcy-knowing-your-rights-and-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney Brent Westbrook Talks About Bankruptcy- Knowing Your Rights And Options."},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-5000-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/westbrooklawgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Know-your-rights-and-options-Atty-Westbrook.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/westbrooklawgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Know-your-rights-and-options-Atty-Westbrook.mp3\">https:\/\/westbrooklawgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Know-your-rights-and-options-Atty-Westbrook.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us on \u201cThis needs to be said\u201d. Our friend, attorney Brent Westbrook is here today to talk with us. We&#8217;re still in a pandemic. We&#8217;re in a different space, but it&#8217;s been a couple of years now, but we&#8217;re still being affected financially. What ever happened two years ago, many of us are still working our way through it whether it&#8217;s help paying bills, finding a new job, whatever license handed you, we are all in one way or another are dealing with it and before we got on air, our friend Brent was talking about how we spend our holidays. He and I, and you know, the concern of, you know, being sick. Isn&#8217;t just the same concern anymore, having a cold sinus, cold head cold, chest cold, congestion of any kind has a different concern to us now. So we opened up thinking about that. And so I was asking him, could we talk today about where people are during this pandemic not because we&#8217;re going to help you, you know, know if it&#8217;s a cold or COVID is because we&#8217;re still dealing with it is the point. So welcome back attorney Brent, how are you?<\/p>\n<p>Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I&#8217;m doing well and good morning to you.<\/p>\n<p>Absolutely! Super morning to you! What a, what a way to spend the holidays, but it did make me think, you know, you know, how can we help other people and while we&#8217;re not medical professionals, we won&#8217;t be able to help you that way. But we know that if you&#8217;re not feeling well, you know, a hundred percent, that means you&#8217;re probably not at work and you may be losing income. And for many of those during the pandemic, it happened rapidly. So the rebuild process of where do we go from here is what I want to talk about. So attorney and I don&#8217;t want to keep saying Westbrook because I&#8217;m tongue tied.<\/p>\n<p>No, no problem. Yes<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s okay.<\/p>\n<p>No problem. Yeah. The tongue twisted this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Yes! We, but yeah, the holiday influenced the same for us. I was telling you before the show, I fought a sinus infection, unfortunately, and of course had to get tested for COVID twice. And even if you&#8217;ve been vaccinated, you know, there&#8217;s still that kind of fear in the back of your mind, every time you cough or blow your nose or, you know, anything like that. Oh my God. COVID.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah. And you, and if no one says it around you, if you happen to be around other people, you wonder what they&#8217;re thinking because you sprinkled or coughed or cleared your throat. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Right! Right! Yeah. It definitely adds an extra layer of stress to just that.<\/p>\n<p>It definitely does. You\u2019re sure, you got to call, but anyway, thank you for, thank you for catching up with me before we went live but as far what you do with your practice, when I thought of bankruptcy years ago, lots of things that you offer never even crossed my mind. I didn&#8217;t know, to ask, I didn&#8217;t know it to be offered. And maybe 20 years ago when I filed for my bankruptcy, maybe it wasn&#8217;t a thing I don&#8217;t know, but people are in a rebuilding phase and we do know that some people have been out of work and you&#8217;ve had a mortgage moratorium and things are getting ready to come back to life where people have having to repay or figure it out. Are you having people come to you for this kind of help or if not, what are they coming to you for?<\/p>\n<p>Yeah. Most of the people now, you know, we&#8217;ve kind of been through COVID, we&#8217;ve had, you know, various moratoriums and courts were shut down in certain places, you know, due to COVID. So we&#8217;re kind of coming out of all that now. Right! And most of the people now have, are coming to us. And, it can be because a lot of these creditors really weren&#8217;t collecting, you know, trying to collect any money, you know, during COVID because of the various moratoriums or court shut downs. But now what we&#8217;re seeing is people coming in and like, Hey, I just got a garnishment hit today or I got a bank levy on my account today. So some of the things that, you know what I mean, where there is, they might&#8217;ve had a judgment from prior to when COVID even came about and, you know, they went through COVID and these guys really weren&#8217;t these creditors weren&#8217;t taking any action now they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re kind of waking up and taking action.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, it&#8217;s one of those things where they are, you know, they&#8217;re, they get the garnishment that hits and the bank levy that hits. And those are very stressful situations. You know, when you&#8217;re already living check to check and you get a garnishment on your paycheck that makes it even harder to make ends meet. And you know, here in Missouri, they can do a bank levy and attach all the money in your bank account. So, you know, imagine that you go to the ATM to, you know, to get some gas or groceries or something and, you know, money in there. So it just, it just creates like everything else. It seems like right now that added layer of stress. And, you know, if you do have a financial problems or some old judgments are dead out there really encourage you to be proactive about dealing with it now, and just getting that fresh start, putting it behind you so that you don&#8217;t have one of those emergency situations that can come up.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah. Yeah. That&#8217;s not a good feeling and that&#8217;s enough to make you angry and you feel like your hands are tied. So for the person who came to you for the people who come to USA- that I just had a bank levy after being mad and hurt and upset and shocked and fearful that the whole world is crumbling down. It does feel like that in that moment. And for several moments after what, what&#8217;s the hope that you offer?<\/p>\n<p>Well, once we get the case file, if we determine bankruptcy is a good solution for them, you know, we get the case filed and they get court protection. So it stops any future garnishment or bank levies from hitting their account. There are some technical rules where sometimes if, the money was taken within the three month period prior to filing bankruptcy, sometimes we can try and get that money back for them but the main thing is just making sure that at least going forward, they don&#8217;t have to worry about that coming up. They can protect their full paycheck and all the money in their bank account from their creditors.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s mental health. I didn&#8217;t wonder like, well, what could be done because I&#8217;ve had my money and it wasn&#8217;t even our fault. We have been in communication with the IRS and I don&#8217;t even remember right now, what was the thing, but they released it instantly because they wanted us to give them a phone call, but we didn&#8217;t even know. And it was like we&#8217;ve been banking at the same place for years. We&#8217;ve been living at the same place for years. Y&#8217;all have been in communication with us. So when something happens, is it a mistake or is it my fault or what, but how fast can we fix this And I remember being so furious because the bank said, there&#8217;s nothing we can do. You know And it felt like they said it with an attitude, like they meant for it to happen to us, Nana, you know, and it may be, it may have been none of that, but it felt like that.<\/p>\n<p>And no one knew what you know. And so what you&#8217;re saying is if it&#8217;s, if you get the case and you discover, this is something you can help with, there are some things that you can do and, you know, possibly, and, and being able to get some relief, some somebody heard me, definitely being able to release my money and I think for us, they, they, they took more than what was owed from the account. And I was like, wow, you know, so it didn&#8217;t even have a rhyme or reason to me. So I was out by myself, me and my husband. We didn&#8217;t have an attorney. We didn&#8217;t know to look for a bankruptcy attorney, to ask about that type of situation. how can we be help You know So there&#8217;s so many things that I learned from you all that wouldn&#8217;t, I wouldn&#8217;t on my own say I should call a bankruptcy attorney and get a consult on this. And so I only thought of one thing, like when I, that the house is burned down and there&#8217;s nothing else I can do, then call for help. That&#8217;s what I need before meeting. So you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re giving any heads up of where, hey, this is a good place to just call it. It doesn&#8217;t hurt to call.<\/p>\n<p>Absolutely! And most firms are going to do free consultation. So it definitely does not hurt to, you know, know what, you know, know what your rights are, what you can do, what your options are and just the best way to deal with the situation and, and move forward with your life.<\/p>\n<p>So know your rights and options. I&#8217;m over here taking notes.<\/p>\n<p>This is what you do. I mean, this is your business. And I know sometimes I get so far into radio or when I do that, I forget, that someone else doesn&#8217;t know what I know or know that I&#8217;m here for them. Like I have friends over the past 13 years that I feel like, just should know to call me when they need to be interviewed, but they don&#8217;t. They wait for me to approach them to say, Hey, I see you doing this new thing, come on my show and talk about it. I&#8217;m wondering, even in my space, what can I do to make them know, as soon as you got something to say, you know, tell me so I can put you on a show, like just a given. So for you, what are the things that you&#8217;re telling me It&#8217;s a given I could call you and say, Hey, attorney Brent, this is what I&#8217;m going through. Is this something you can help me with I don&#8217;t have that automatic thing to call you. And I think I should. So how do you help us to know outside of me knowing I absolutely need to file bankruptcy when else could I call you?<\/p>\n<p>Yeah. So any time that there&#8217;s some financial stress going on, you know, Hey, I don&#8217;t have enough money to pay this. Anytime you&#8217;re feeling that financial squeeze, some, there may be an option that we have to help, or we may re you know, have some different advice or someone else we could refer you to. you know, so we have consumer protection lawyers that we refer a lot of people to that may have been treated incorrectly by a creditor, you know so I would say really any time that you&#8217;re feeling, some financial stress, it&#8217;s not a bad idea. you know, especially if you&#8217;re, if you don&#8217;t have enough money at the end of the month to make it go around and service all your debt, to reach out to a bankruptcy lawyer, anytime you, you know, if you do get served with something or sued by a creditor garnished, any of those where the courts involved, I think it&#8217;s good to reach out and just make sure you know, what your options are.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes we have a good solution. Sometimes it&#8217;s somebody else you need to talk to, you know but, I think it&#8217;s always a good idea to reach out anytime you&#8217;re feeling that to natural stress or you&#8217;ve got a, a lawsuit or judicial proceeding, you know, and, and like I was saying earlier after this, COVID, I think everybody&#8217;s kind of, you know, even these prior judgments that, you know, maybe somebody&#8217;s got a judgment against them in 2019, you know, a couple of years ago, and the creditor really hasn&#8217;t taken any action on it. And it&#8217;s like, well, I haven&#8217;t heard anything from them. You know what I mean maybe I don&#8217;t think maybe they just wrote it off. I hear that a lot. Right! So maybe they wrote it off but that doesn&#8217;t, even if they do write it off, they can pursue that debt. That&#8217;s really just a tax maneuver. and, and I think without any collection that&#8217;s really been happening on a, you know, on a large scale during COVID, it, it can give everybody a false sense of security, you know, and now those creditors are kind of waking back up and they&#8217;re trying to garnish and do whatever they can to collect that money. So, you know, I think it was a good idea.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah,<\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah. Right! Right! So, yeah, but, you know, really any financial stress, any type of judicial process, I think can, you know, can create, the need to talk to a bankruptcy lawyer or other financial expert to just see what kind of, action you should take.<\/p>\n<p>This is the more I have you all on the show. The more it helps me to just be at peace with it. You know, I, when I had to file bankruptcy, I was heavily involved in church. Felt like I let down God I&#8217;m embarrassment to my family. Like there was so much, and being a single mind, I&#8217;m like, yeah, they knew I was gonna fail. You know, somebody probably saw this come in and it is just not a good space to live in. So when I got the opportunity to have you on the show, I was like, what would I ask if I would have had the chance back then So that&#8217;s where all of my questions come from, because I hope that someone hears my story. Here&#8217;s your help and take action for themselves and move before it&#8217;s too late cause sometimes we don&#8217;t even know what too late looks like.<\/p>\n<p>Because when I found myself in a situation, I had never been that far under debt in my life. And so, you know, people say you&#8217;re going to put me in the poor house. You&#8217;re going to make me go broke or I&#8217;m gonna have to file bankruptcy. It was a figure of speech. It wasn&#8217;t really legal advice. So I&#8217;m very happy to have you all on the show to share your information. Now you&#8217;re in the Midwest and someone in the middle wants to get in touch with you to have a console or to work with your practice. How do they get in touch with you outside of \u201cThis needs to be said\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sure. So our office phone number is (636) 493-9231. You can also reach out on our website, www dot Westbrook, no E on the end law group.com and, you can reach out online, or call the office either- way and, we&#8217;ll get you set up.<\/p>\n<p>All right! Well, you, I believe you also have something on your website if they want to go out and get more information for them to sign up for. Is there a newsletter or a book<\/p>\n<p>Yes, there is. You can request a free copy of our book. I wrote a book about, bankruptcy and, you know, getting a fresh start, and they can go online, fill out our form, fill their, and request a free copy of our book. And we will get that out in the mail to you. complimentary and yeah, anybody that&#8217;s interested in reading that it is a quick read, the, the title of the books, defeat debt and unburden your life and, you can get through it very quickly. And all my clients really enjoy have enjoyed reading our book there&#8217;s many examples of past clients that we&#8217;ve been able to help. And, you know, our clients say, oh, I read your book. And this person in the book, that&#8217;s just what I was going through, you know, and it kinda gave me relief to know that there&#8217;s light at the end of the tunnel. And, and, this is just a temporary thing and we can get past this, you know, so, definitely reach out you can also download a free E copy of the book too, right there on our website. We&#8217;ll request the hard copy.<\/p>\n<p>So yeah, well, I have the copy and in my mind, I just wish it was 20 years ago because your offers oh, many great resources that I personally have a copy of your book. So those are \u201cThis needs to be said\u201d, audience. He is telling the truth. It is a quick read, but for me, I won&#8217;t say quick in the point of I was looking for what each person was going through or what, you know, what was the help that each person received in the book. So it took me a little longer because I could feel, I really wanted to feel like where&#8217;s this person, because I want to help that person. If they&#8217;re in our audience listening to us but for the, you, the person that&#8217;s listening, it will be a quick read. I took it for myself, but I want to help as many people as possible. And if that&#8217;s getting people in front of you and other attorneys in their designated areas where people need help, then I&#8217;m doing a part. So get a copy of his book, go to his website, give that website one more time. So that&#8217;s the last thing they hear. And then we&#8217;re going to wrap up.<\/p>\n<p>Sure. So the website for us is www dot Westbrook. No E on the end of Westbrook law group.com.<\/p>\n<p>Awesome! Until next time you have a wonderful day.<\/p>\n<p>You too! Take care. Always enjoy talking with you.<\/p>\n<p>Same here! Thank you. Take care. Bye- Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us on \u201cThis needs to be said\u201d. Our friend, attorney Brent Westbrook is here today to talk with us. We&#8217;re still in a pandemic. We&#8217;re in a different space, but it&#8217;s been a couple of years now, but we&#8217;re still being affected financially. 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