Solve your debt in 5 days or less!

creditors cannot discount or ignore income such as 
annuities, pensions, social security payments, disability 
payments, etc.  However, they are allowed to evaluate the 
reliability of these payments when making their 
credit-granting decisions. 
If at the time of your husband's death you have little or no 
credit history of your own, it is essential that you do what 
you can to build one.  As you begin the credit-building 
process, don’t forget that the ECOA says that when you apply 
for credit the creditor must consider information in your 
husbands file if you can prove that his credit history 
reflects yours.  Although this is a long shot, it may be 
worth the effort depending upon your particular credit 
situation. 
Once your husband dies, any bank accounts that you held 
jointly with a right of survivorship will go directly to you 
and will not be tied up in the probate process.  The same 
holds true for life insurance benefits.  To receive these 
monies, however, you will need to file a claim, and it could 
take as long as six weeks after filing before you actually 
see the money.  This is another reason why it is a good idea 
to have your own credit and your own bank account since you 
may need ready and adequate access to cash and possibly 
credit immediately after your husband's death. 
If your husband dies and leaves debt, it will depend on the 
type of debt whether or not you will have to pay it.  Most 
debt you will not have to pay.  However, if a debt is a 
shared obligation and there is not enough money in your 
husband's estate to pay it in full, you may have to take 
care of that debt using the money from the bank accounts and 
insurance proceeds, etc. that were not a part of the probate 
process.  You also will be obligated to take care of any 
debt secured with property. 
The rules governing a widows obligations for her dead 
husband's debts are different in community property states.  
Check with your attorney. 
Once again, the problems described above illustrate why it 
is important to keep joint credit to an absolute minimum and 
to avoid it completely if possible.  Having at least some 
individual credit will maximize the number of options you 
will have for dealing with money matters after your 
husband's death. 
If widowhood happens suddenly and you have not been able to 
prepare yourself credit-wise, you will face a number of 
financial obstacles that may impede your ability to build a 
happy and satisfying fife for yourself on your own.  Without 
a credit history of your own, you may find yourself without 
access to ready credit.  Also, if you were an authorized 
user on your husbands accounts, those accounts can be 
canceled by his creditors.  In addition, a creditor has the 
right to request that you reapply for credit on joint 
accounts if an account was based on your spouse's income.  
If a joint account was based on your income, however, or if 
either of you could have qualified for the credit at the 
time of application, you will probably not be required to 
reapply. 
To postpone dealing with a loss of credit right away, you 
often can delay reporting your husband's death to his 
creditors.  Use this time to get your financial situation in 
order.  It is not always advisable to delay reporting your 
husband's death for an extended period of time.  In some 
instances, if the creditors somehow learn about your 
husband's death before you have told them, the information 
may prejudice them in the reapplication process. 

         
 
How To Collect Business Debts
by Jim Heath 
This document tells you what debt-collection methods there 
are, how well they work, and how to choose which to use. 
You're in for some surprises. A lot of this material comes 
from behind the scenes: straight from lawyers, court 
officials, private investigators and debt collectors -- 
talking informally and bluntly. 
What you'll gain from the book is increased profits and 
fewer worries. And if you're new to all this, it could 
actually save your business. 
Introduction
(1) This book is copyright, but you can make any 'fair use' 
of it under copyright law. That of course doesn't include 
poor-attitude things like re-publishing the work (or parts 
of it) and claiming it's yours, or putting parts of it in 
some other document or website and implying you wrote those 
parts, or using any of it in a publication that you sell. 
You get the idea. 
(2) This book was published in 1990 under the title "The 
Debt Book" and is based on the law in Victoria, Australia. 
It's likely to be out of date in a few small ways, even in 
Victoria (though Victorian law, like most law, evolves 
slowly). 
(3) Many of the debt-collection principles in the book are 
universal, and some probably would have worked well in 
ancient Thebes and Babylon. But don't expect the details 
about court procedures and such things to apply to you -- 
unless you live in Victoria. 
(4) Lawyers have checked this book, and so have debt 
collectors and other pros. But I'm not a lawyer and don't 
claim that the general information in the book will work in 
any given situation. If you have a legal question, see a 
lawyer. 
(5) Which brings me to this lovely wet-blanket statement 
that you'll enjoy reading: All information and advice in 
this book is provided without any responsibility or 
liability on any account whatsoever on the part of the 
author or the copyright holder or the book publisher. Also, 
the names of people and companies used as illustrations are 
fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or 
dead, or to real companies is purely coincidental. 
(6) If you want to know more about me for some reason, see 
this little bio. 
(7) If you want to check that you're looking at exactly the 
same book I put on the web, here's a PGP signature of the 
DebtBook.html file. 
(8) If you'd like an original copy of the printed book, I 
regret that you can't have one: it's been out of print for a 
long time. But if you're in Victoria, there are copies in 
the library system. The Western Australian edition can still 
be ordered from Viacorp. 
1. What happens to the innocent
SEE IF the following story sounds familiar.
At the time, you were really happy to make the sale. He was 
a new customer, and his order was worth $6200. A promising