ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 9, 1996 TAG: 9611110013
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
The number of bankruptcy filings in Western Virginia continues to skyrocket, leading the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to again raise projections for this year's cases of financial distress.
In a report released Friday, officials for the Roanoke-based court for the Western District of Virginia predicted that the number of its filings will top 9,400 by the end of the year. That is up from an estimate of 9,000 that the court's clerk, John Craig II, made just three months ago.
Filings for the district during this year's third calendar quarter were up 35.3 percent over the first nine months of 1995, which had been the record year.
The main culprit, said Roanoke bankruptcy attorney Andrew Goldstein, is easy credit - in the form of credit cards and home equity loans.
"Credit is very readily available, even to people with bad credit," he said. Competition among lenders and credit card companies is so stiff, he said, that they have relaxed their requirements to draw in more customers.
"Lenders have become thick-skinned about bankruptcy," he said.
Additionally, said Roanoke attorney Malissa Lambert Giles, the stigma once attached to bankruptcy is disappearing. The number of inquiries about bankruptcy that her office receives has almost doubled in last year, she said. The office has seen a considerable increase in the number of people who file because they owe from $5,000 to $12,000, she said.
"As everybody else does it, it becomes easier to do it yourself," she said. "And it's so easy to re-establish your credit after you file."
The number of filings is likely to increase again in the first quarter of 1997, she said, as people who get too deep in debt with Christmas spending opt for bankruptcy.
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Bankruptcy in Western Virginia. color.by CNB