The number of people filing for bankruptcy in the U.S. and U.K. has been falling steadily for the past few years, but charities and analysts are concerned that homeowners could get in trouble if the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England raise interest rates.

The latest figures from the U.K. government, released in July, showed the rate of bankruptcies (measured as the number of insolvencies per 10,000 adults) has fallen every year from a peak of 30.9 in 2009 to 21.8 in 2014.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the number of people filing for bankruptcy declined by 12 percent to 879,736 for the year ending June 30, according to records released by the U.S. bankruptcy courts.  Read more…

Credit report errors are more common than you may think. A Federal Trade Commission report found that 20% of consumers had an error on at least one of their three credit reports — 5% of consumers had errors on their credit reports that were serious enough to subject them to higher interest rates on loans.

Likewise, it’s not unheard of for consumers who have filed for bankruptcy to find debts that were discharged in bankruptcy are still appearing on their credit reports as being owed. While the law governing credit reports provides for a way to correct those errors, there’s a new effort under way to ensure accurate reporting specifically for bankruptcy filings.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio has introduced a bill to strengthen credit report accuracy by requiring creditors to report that a debt discharged in bankruptcy shows a zero balance on the consumer’s credit report in an accurate and timely manner.  Read more…

Under federal law, when someone erases a debt in bankruptcy, their bank is required to update their credit reports to indicate the debt is no longer owed. To ensure this happens, legislators have introduced a new bill that would give credit card borrowers with inaccurate credit reports the power to sue their bank or a third-party debt buyer for damages if they continue to send so-called zombie debt to credit reporting agencies.

The Consumer Reporting Fairness Act of 2015 — introduced by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown — aims to make it easier for consumers who discharge credit card debt through bankruptcy to fix errors and obtain accurate credit reports.  Read more…