Radio Interview with Robert Peters and Ben Glass

Transcription

1 Radio Interview with Robert Peters and Ben Glass Hello everyone and welcome back to the program, this is Ben Glass and as our listeners know, each month we seek out and interview some of the nation s top thought leaders on a variety of topics. Today, we are talking to Jacksonville, Florida attorney Robert Peters. Mr. Peters is the author of a terrific book, Myths, Secrets, and Truths about Bankruptcy in Florida, and a number of other consumer guides and I am sure we are going to have a lot of great information today, Robert welcome to the call. RP: Ben thank you so much, it s wonderful to be here. BG: Well great, look one of the things I always like to start with is to get people to tell us a little bit about your own entrepreneurial journey. Before we dig deep into the legal side, how did you get where you are today?

2 RP: Boy well that is a tough one, how did I get here today? I would at least like to go back to the real estate boom, I took part in that and in 2007, I decided to pack my wife and three children up and take a year trip around the world. I wanted the kids to see that there was more to the world than north-east Florida and so we did a one year walk about and it was a great chance to see the world. When I came back, I found out that real estate had been decimated while we were gone. It seemed like the country had collapsed economically while we were gone and I needed to find a way to support my family and it seemed that Bankruptcies were devastating people throughout the country and that there was a lot of financial hardship, and I felt like that was an area that I could make a contribution. So I got involved, and with my background as a certified public accountant, it was natural for me after the real estate bust to get involved in the bankruptcy side of things and foreclosure defense and those types of things, and that s partly how I came to be where I am today. BG: You know a lot of lawyers, when we hear ads and such about call us and you ll get a free consultation, things like that. But you have actually taken the step of offering the Bankruptcy book and the other publications, but tell us about the Secrets and the Truths about Bankruptcy in Florida, why did you write that and then we will talk about how people can get it. RP: You know one of the first things that really concerned me was the way many people had misconceptions about Bankruptcy. And they had heard just a little snippet from their brother that lived in Ohio, or they had read on the internet that you know if they filed bankruptcy their wife had to even though she didn t have any credit problems. There were so many misconceptions and myths about the Bankruptcy process and it s something that most people do only one time in their life unless maybe you are Donald Trump and you do it two or three times. Most people do it once and it s not something they really want to talk about. They are dealing in an area where they are afraid to ask questions and the little bit that they do know, tends not to be entirely correct. And they just, so many people have their heads buried in the sand. It reminds me of what I have to do sometimes when I have a medical problem, like well gee I ll just have to live with it, why go to a doctor, I don t think that he ll be able to do anything. Sometimes when I go to the doctor with one of those complaints, he is actually able to do something. It s true, I mean I lived with a certain condition for probably 10 years and I just figured I needed to live with it, and I mentioned it to a doctor once and he fixed it within five minutes. It is the same way in the financial area. Something I have been doing every day, and all of my professional life and I can almost always come up with a good plan, sometimes a great plan, sometimes just a good plan, but there s a plan for everybody.

3 BG: One of the things I know that consumers face when they have any legal problem, particularly bankruptcy these days. Boy you go on the internet, you open the yellow pages, you watch TV, a bazillion lawyers, and even non-lawyers offering to help you as you are facing the Debt Monkey or they are facing foreclosure. Why should a consumer think about using a lawyer instead of one of the non-lawyer entities? How does anyone go about, Robert, finding a good Bankruptcy lawyer? What is the methodology? RP: What s not helpful is the yellow pages. You go on Google and you see so many ads on the top and on the right and everybody is shouting debt relief, or file your bankruptcy here. I have tried to take a little bit of a different tact and offer information about a number of different financial topics in the book, Myths, Secrets, and the Truth About Bankruptcy. In that book we talk about, is debt settlement the way to go, and sometimes it is. We have a chapter about what does the Bible say about bankruptcy. BG: I wanted to ask some questions about that. RP: Yes, some people have some moral qualms, understandably, about filing Bankruptcy. And in another section of the book, we have, we try to address some of the myths. In another part of the book we try and go thru what are some steps you can take to find a lawyer who actually knows what they are doing, because chances are, you don t know a bankruptcy lawyer or a lawyer who can help you with problems and so that s the reason I wrote the book about bankruptcy and I also wrote a book,.

4 The Florida Foreclosure Survival Guide to provide information to folks and then let them make their own decision. I think as you go through qualifications, it s things like, have they prepared materials of that sort before for you to look at? Have they been around for a while or are they just a spokesperson for a firm? Do they have good reviews on their website? We have a website with about 65 reviews that people have done through an independent company, so that s another way to try and find out if someone knows what they are doing. BG: All of these things are important and I ve read your book, because you were kind enough to give me a copy and really, I haven t seen any other lawyer provide as much free information, because you make the book available for free, right? RP: That is correct, it s free and you can go to my website which is BG: And what better way to get to know a lawyer before you actually go and visit him than to read his book, which is about 50 pages or so, with a lot of information, not just about bankruptcy but also philosophy. One of your chapters here is: What does the Bible say about Bankruptcy. So Robert, what would you say to someone who says yes I am facing the Debt Monkey but I have qualms about not paying my creditors.

5 RP: Well, you know, as a Christian, I understand because I feel the same way. And if you don t have any hesitancy about filing bankruptcy, than something is wrong with you. As a Christian, you have an additional thought process- is it immoral to file bankruptcy? I have kind of gone through different verses of the Bible and look at what we think the Bible has to say about it, and it seems to be an understanding that if you get to a situation where debt is crushing you, and you can t take care of it, Bankruptcy can be a valid outlet as there was no intent at the beginning to get oneself in that position to take advantage of things. Basically the Bible conforms with our Constitution and our Federal laws that say If the honest, but unfortunate debtor finds himself in a situation The Bible has the same thing The Jubilee, every 7 th year you were to forgive the debts of your debtors. So creditors were supposed to give folks a clean slate every 7 years. You know interestingly enough Federal Law is that you can file bankruptcy once every 8 years actually. It s about balancing Justice and Mercy. BG: You know another thing that might stop someone from even talking to an attorney like you. There is a sense out there that if I file for bankruptcy I won t be able to get credit for 7 years, or 10 years, or 20 years. As we are recording this, and as you noted, many listeners have already gone through a financial tsunami. What s the truth about a person s credit and bankruptcy? RP: Well you know that another reason I wrote a third book about Credit Repair after Bankruptcy or Life after Bankruptcy because so many people come into my office and they tell me, I ve got perfect credit and if I file bankruptcy it s going to be ruined and I just know that I won t be able to get a house or a car for at least 10 years. And again that kind of dovetails with the Myths again. The truth is you can get a FHA home loan after bankruptcy and it s all credit score driven. Credit scores can go up and down, and you might be a 700 before you file bankruptcy and it may go down to below 600 but it can all be rebuilt. That s the key. It s not a permanent condition. What is true is the credit organizations can report that you have filed a bankruptcy as long as seven years on your credit report. That doesn t mean you can t have a perfect credit score. And that s all that really matters. I ve got a client that just contacted us the other day and I ve got to ask to obtain the exact facts, but I could swear that he has not been out of bankruptcy 8 months and he told my staff he had a 700 Beacon score which is, as you know, excellent credit. That s one reason why when someone files a bankruptcy with our office, you are not forgotten after that bankruptcy is done. Once your bankruptcy is finished, we do a post-bankruptcy consultation where we

6 pull your credit report and we sit down with you and we say okay, here is what your credit report is showing, here is your score, and here is what you need to do to get it better and a lot of time what we have found is that the credit bureau is supposed to report that you have filed a bankruptcy. Fine, you did. But they also report on there that you have balances due to MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. But wait a minute that s the worst of both worlds. We help you send some letters to the credit bureaus, saying Hey that was supposed to be zeroed out. If you don t clear it out as you are supposed to under the law, we are going to bring a suit against you and force you to do that. Because if you allow that junk to accumulate on your credit report, it s going to be hard to get your credit score improved. The whole purpose of that consultation is to help you to get a game plan to get credit again because a lot of people tell me, Robert I just don t want credit anymore. I m sick of it. I ve learned my lesson. You know it s sort of like a safety blanket, or a savings account. If you need it, car craps out on you and you need or you decide you want to quit being a renter and buy a house, if you have a 700 credit score, you have options, 600 credit score, you do not have options. BG: Here is what I like about what I am hearing. You take a very holistic approach to this, you are not there just to, you know just to file someone s bankruptcy papers, you are really there overlooking, or kind of overlooking their financial lives and indeed filing bankruptcy isn t the end of their financial life. It s very cool. Let me ask you this, What is a top mistake you see people who are filing bankruptcy and who are in the process, what s a big no-no once you are into the bankruptcy laws? RP: Well let me back up and tell you one that breaks my heart every time before people file bankruptcy is people using their retirement account, it s just sad. You know back in the day when we had pensions you could not use that pension up and receive it before you retire. Nowadays with 401 K s and IRA s people can get into those. Not only do you pay a 10% penalty to the IRS for taking money out of your 401K or your IRA, but you also take what is bankruptcy exempt out. So if you have 200 grand sitting in your IRA, that s not relevant to your bankruptcy and that s what a lot of people do and it just breaks my heart. They take most or all of their money out of their IRA and they use it to help pay the credit cards or pay the house bill for a while and they still end up filing bankruptcy, and I kind of equate it to a baseball game. So many people wait till the bottom of the 9 th with 2 outs to file their bankruptcy, when in the 6 th inning its 32-nothing and there was no hope of winning the game and instead they wipe out their IRA, they borrow from their parents and then they still file bankruptcy so that s why I always tell people, if you come in and sit down with somebody, whether it is me or somebody else and get a game plan. Find out what the rules are, because whatever you think they are, they probably aren t what you think. So I have answered a different question than what you asked I think you asked what a post-bankruptcy mistake is. Well I don t get too many people who make post-bankruptcy mistakes because I get them in my office and once we get a plan together, we usually don t have those kinds of problems so going forward, from our consultation forward, we are usually able to at least stop the hemorrhaging of whatever issue you ve got and have you headed down a path in the best possible way and in even better shape. BG: Now I have one eye on the clock, but I do know that you have literally hundreds of videos up on YouTube. Again, I applaud you for giving away so much free and useful information to consumers before

7 they even call you and come in for a consult. But someone goes to YouTube, they do some searches and what will they find there in terms of videos? RP: Thank you for asking I was going to mention that. I have a YouTube channel, it s called Robert Peters Law and over the last 3 years I guess, we have put almost 100 videos on there. And what we try to do is just take a question, a myth, a mistake, an issue and try, in a minute to two minutes to try and give folks an idea or a sense of what the law is in that particular circumstance. What we did was the top ten bankruptcy mistakes. 1 was pulling money out of your IRA. 2. Was waiting too late to the bottom of the 9 th instead of doing it in the 6 th inning. We did a lot of videos on bankruptcy, probably out of all of the 100 videos done 60 of them are bankruptcy. And having that real estate background and accounting back ground, I knew a lot about real estate and so therefore I knew a lot about foreclosure and I have actually worked for banks on foreclosures so I have actually been on the other side and I actually represent about 30 folks right now in foreclosure defense and that s why I put a book together about foreclosure defense but I did a number of videos, probably on foreclosure defense and the key thing that I tell people in foreclosure situations is, don t give up. I know Bank of America is a large institution and you are just one person, and sometimes you feel overwhelmed by going up against them, but you know almost everybody has more bullets in their gun than they think to fight these people off. And you would be surprised when you learn a little bit about bankruptcy, or foreclosure defense, or modification, and that kind of thing, what is really out there for you. The other area that we tried to put some videos on there on is credit repair to try and address those issues. And we also have some videos on social security disability. That s another area which is very similar to bankruptcy where most people apply themselves the first time and I think its 92% of them are denied. They are hurt and not working and they are worried about not being able to pay the electric bill and they think gee I ve been denied and the ball game is over. Well that is usually just the start, when you hire an attorney for a social security disability case and you are able to get to the hearing level there is about a 70% success rate. We try to let people know the social security disability system works and maximize their chances of success. BG: Down to my favorite topic, to entrepreneurs and thought leaders across the country, What are you doing outside of the law. I know you operated a nonprofit warrior vacations? Tell us a little bit about that.

8 RP: You know I did, and when were on our trip around the world, it was at a point in time where every single day in the paper thee was a drip drip drip two guys died in Iraq, 3, 4, 5, 10 however many, it seemed like every day. And I had been in the service, I wasn t in during war time, and I started thinking, I ve got to do something, but I was too old to actually go in and serve and I just felt like the small minority, the 1% of the guys and families in the service are pulling the weight for all of us. I just felt like there s got to be something I can do. I have a condo on the beach at home and my brother and I got together and said you know we could do something. During the off season, it just sits there, no one uses it. Fort Stuart is right up the road from Jacksonville, why don t we see if there are some people who are hurt up there who could use our condo. We talked to our condo complex to see if we could get other people to let us use their units and we ended up getting 3 or 4 other units who let families from Fort Stuart who were rotating back from, at that time it was Iraq. And it kind of grew from there, and we started getting more condo associations involved and before we knew it we had about 90 owners who were participating in the program, or who are participating in the program. Each of them provide a free week, or at least 4 days to a family coming back from the war and as of about years we have served 330 families that have had an absolutely free vacation in Amelia Island, FL. The only thing we ask them to do is to write a thank you letter to the owners. It s been a wonderful program and the response has been great from both sides. You know I think Americans, this is the only war that we have had where there was not a tax increase, and there was not a draft. So I think most people want to do something. BG: That s tremendous, well Robert Peters, author of the Myths, Secrets, and the Truth About Bankruptcy in Florida and a number of other legal guides, what is the best way for someone who is in Florida to get more information or to even make an appointment to come in and see you. RP: You are welcome to call us in Jacksonville at at Fernandina Beach/Amelia island we can be reached at and our internet website is and at that website you can watch our videos (or visit our YouTube channel at you can download our book, we have one on social security disability, we have a book on foreclosure, we have a book on bankruptcy, and we have a book on life after bankruptcy. All that information is there for you to use. I highly recommend you use the information and see what is right for you. BG: Well Mr. Peters, thank you so much for coming on the program today and I look forward to speaking with you in the future you are doing a lot of great stuff for the folks in Florida. You are doing wonderful things with the nonprofit and the warrior vacations and I look forward to speaking with you in the future. RP: Thank you sir thank you so much.