Secured Personal Loans: Funding After Bankruptcy

After bankruptcy, it can be very difficult to get approved for a personal loan, nevertheless, there are some lenders willing to lend to people in such financial difficulties as long as they can provide enough security in order to reduce the risk of missed payments and default which is what worries lender’s the most.

There is no need to despair; someone who has gone through a bankruptcy process can easily get approved for a secured personal loan within certain period of time if able to meet certain requirements. Bankruptcy can be very stressful but finance can still be found during these hard times, you just need to know where to find it.

Requirements

Each lender has different requirements when it comes to personal loans. Due to a lack of regulation on this particular issue, lenders are free to lend to anyone and take as much risk as they want. Their only limitation is the interest rate they can charge but they usually bypass this limitation by charging additional fees and other costs.

The main requirement, as usual, is your credit score. Of course you will have a low credit score after bankruptcy. The question is, however, how low? If bankruptcy was your last delinquency, then, your credit score must have increased over some time and if there were not too many delinquencies before bankruptcy, perhaps you can convince lenders that bankruptcy was due to unfortunate events and not because of your poor credit behavior.

Your credit history is another important variable related to your credit score. The credit history that really matters is the months following your bankruptcy. Your credit report must show no late payments, nor missed payments and no other delinquencies whatsoever during those months. This will greatly increase your possibilities of getting finance after bankruptcy.

Collateral

Since bankruptcy implies a lot of risk, the key to obtaining finance is to reduce that risk. One of the best ways to do so is to offer some kind of security by providing an asset as collateral. A house, apartment, a car or any other vehicle can be used to secure your loan and increase your chances of getting approved. Obviously, the asset has to be worthy enough. Its value should exceed significantly the amount of money requested.

Even though the loan will be secured, the interest rate charged will be considerably higher, this is due to the fact that collateral will only reduce the risk but the risk for the lender will still be higher. A past bankruptcy shows you have defaulted before and that scares lenders away. Thus, the interest rate, which is based on the risk, will be higher under these conditions than under regular conditions.

Outstanding Debt

Since not all debts are discharged after bankruptcy, your debt level will also be a variable to take into account when a lender considers to provide finance or not. If you still have outstanding loans and high amounts of debt, chances are that you will not get approved unless you can show a steady income and provide a very valuable asset as collateral that is free from mortgages and other limitations.