If you have the finances to accomplish debt settlement, you can get out of debt quickly and permanently. As the name implies, debt settlement refers to an amicable agreement reached between yourself and a creditor for either one lump sum, or a structured payment plan, in order to achieve a discounted payoff on an account. Below are five reasons to consider this option for getting back on the road to financial freedom.

Say goodbye to your bills. With debt settlement, your bills are gone for good. In most instances, a settlement will result in the creditor closing your account. While this may seem difficult, especially if you have become reliant on your credit card(s), it will prevent you from using them again in the future and rebuilding a mountain of debt. Debt settlement you to wipe the debt away permanently.

Your phone will stop ringing. If you have ever been late with one or more bills, then you already know that creditors begin calling at 8 a.m. and are not legally required to stop calling until after 9 p.m. at night. Depending on how many bills you are behind with, your telephone may be ringing at all hours. This is not only unnerving to you and your family, but it gets even worse when the collections department makes you feel terrible about your situation. With debt settlement, the phone will stop ringing because you will no longer owe anything on a settled account.

Avoid legal action & bankruptcy. Depending on the amount of debt that you owe to a particular creditor and the severity of the delinquency, they may pursue a civil judgement against you in order to recover payment. Once a judgement is entered, the creditor can petition the court for permission to garnish your wages, attach to your bank account or other legal methods used to collect a debt. A debt settlement will prevent this from happening and will ease your mind about ever getting served with lawsuit papers. In addition, settling your debts will enable you to prevent the filing of bankruptcy, which is a stressful process and the worst blemish that you could have on your credit report. While a bankruptcy will remain on your credit file for up to 10 years, a debt settlement will expire after 7 years.

Improve your credit score. How can debt settlement improve your credit score? At first, it may not help that much. But compared to the alternative of continued late or missed payments, mounting debt related to late fees and penalty interest, a settlement will be much better for both you and your credit report. At the very least, debt settlement will show that you have attempted to repay your debt(s) and, at best, your credit score will improve as you slowly begin to rebuild your credit.

Eliminate your debt at a fraction of the balance. With debt settlement, you agree to pay the creditor one lump sum, or structured payments, to eliminate the debt altogether. In exchange, the creditor agrees to accept a fraction of the balance as full payment. Quite often, you can settle a debt for as little as 20% on the dollar, which means a $10,000.00 debt could potentially be settled for $2,000.00. If you were to continue making payments on that same account, combined with interest rates, you would likely end up spending $20,000-30,000 before finally reaching a zero balance. With debt settlement, you are not only saving the obvious difference between the balance and the settlement amount, but you may also be saving a considerable amount of money in interest.

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Brian Dolezal is a contributing editor for TopConsumerReviews.com, a leading provider of independent reviews and rankings for hundreds of consumer products. You can find out how top debt relief programs compare by visiting TopConsumerReviews.com today.