Debt settlements and declaring bankruptcy are two common methods of dealing with lack of credit in your bank account. Basically debt settlement means hiring a debt settlement company to negotiate with the creditors the pending debt amount and reach a settlement which is much lower than the initially agreed percentage.
There are many ways of dealing with debt in case you are unable to repay it within the time period decided upon. While declaring bankruptcy is one way of dealing with the situation, it has a long-lasting impact on your financial life.
Bankruptcy laws are complicated and the interpretation and intervention of the law varies from case to case. In case the loan has co-signatories where one decides to file bankruptcy might affect the others.