If your bills have gotten out of control, Maine bankruptcy laws could provide the protection you need.

Bankruptcy Exemptions

The items protected under Maine bankruptcy laws from your creditors and the courts include:

• Up to $47,500 for your residence or burial plot, increased to $90,000 if you have minor dependents, dependents (or yourself) are over age 60, or dependents (or yourself) are handicapped
• Up to $5,000 in value for a vehicle
• Proceeds from sale of a residence if used within six months to purchase another residence
• Up to $200 per item for most household items
• Up to six months worth of food
• Any furnaces or stoves used for heating, and one cooking stove
• One growing season’s worth of fertilizers, feed, or seeds used for growing food
• Up to $5,000 for tools of the trade
• Any tools or equipment used to grow, raise, and harvest food
• One commercial fishing boat, up to 5 tons burden
• One each of all farm implements used for commercial agriculture
• Public benefits
• Unemployment compensation
• Health aids prescribed professionally
• Up to $4,000 in dividends from life insurance
• Alimony and child support
• Payment from pension, annuity, or something similar due to death, disability, etc., up to $15,000
• Crime victim’s reparation award
• Up to $12,500 for personal bodily injury
• Wrongful death payments
• Life insurance payments if you depended on the deceased
• Up to $500 for other property
• Up to $6,000 of unused residence exemption toward other categories
• Loss of future earnings payments

If your car still has a loan on it, you must reaffirm the loan within 45 days of your 341 meeting, or it could be repossessed.

Chapter 7 Banruptcy Information

Chapter 7 bankruptcy allows you to sell your assets, use the money to pay down debt, and then be free of most remaining debts. You must pass an income test for Chapter 7. Some types of debt, like child support payments, cannot be forgiven even with Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Information

Chapter 13 bankruptcy allows you to make an attempt to pay back what you owe. This can allow you to keep some assets, like your home. It also gives you court protection if you make too much money to file for Chapter 7.