I live in Florida and have spoken with a Bankruptcy lawyer about my situation. I had excellent credit prior to a house I had up for sale being on the market for 6 months and tried to sustain two mortgages plus expenses on both houses and a lot of credit card debt, mostly used to fix up both houses.

It’s been since March 2007 that I made my last credit card payments. I took all of the 00 I received as a tax refund and paid it on 5 different cards.
I called the credit card companies and tried to set up a payment plan of some sort because I was drowning. NONE of the 5 would and acted really crappy when asked. The phone calls also bordered on harassment.
So, eating ramen noodles and peanut butter started pissing me off. If they didn’t want to work with me, then I wouldn’t work with them.
I changed my telephone number and stopped paying them.

After speaking with an attorney early this year, he stated that unless I was faced with court papers to appear, to stave off filing for bankruptcy. If I did file, it would be for Chapter 13 he stated.

I wanted a second opinion so here I am. My questions are…

If I do not file, the statue of limitations runs out in less than 2.5 years for the state of Florida. If I am not served a summons, after the SOL runs out, can they still serve me with papers?

If there is no summons or judgment, will the charge off debts stay on my record for 7 years from the last time I paid the credit card company? Or when the debt was sold to a collection agency which I think is usually a year afterwards (they all have been sold).

If the debt is sold again to another collection agency, does my time start over?

On my credit record, will there be an entry for the credit card company debt AND the collection agency?

I simply want to know when the credit card company debt and charge offs will drop from my record if I do not pay them.

Thanks for any help you can provide…
The SOL is 4 years, it will run out in 2.5 years since my last payment is what I was referring to.

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Last year at this time my credit score was 750, but over the past year I have had some financial crisis and am very deeply in debt. I talked with a lawyer today and I understand the difference between chapter 13, and 7. My question is, other than the obviouse destroying my credit, how will filing chapter 7 affect me? Will I ever get a credit card again? Will I lose my atm/debt card? Will I be able to rent a house or apt after my foreclosure? Please, anyone who has any experience with this, any info would help.

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I am looking for someone to file my chapter 7, but I don’t have enough money to pay it all up front, are there any lawyers who will let you do it with a payment plan? (and no i don’t mean chapter 13 payment plans i mean the actual fee to file chapter 7)

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My Husband and I are filing Chapter 13. We call, leave messages, email and even write our Attorney and she never answers us. Our Meeting with the Creditors is soon, and we want to know what happens to us legally if we do not attend? Our Attorney was made aware that we had questions and wanted to file a dismissal. And she never got back to us.

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Chapter 13 – personal

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I filed Chapter 13 in 2004 while I was in the military. Now I’m out and am about 0,000 in debt for medical bills. Will I be able to file for a Chapter 7 since I’ve already filed once before?
The lawyers that helped me file the first time never said anything about a Chapter 7. They told me that Chapter 13 was the only option available for filing bankruptcy.

Technorati Tags: chapter 13, chapter 7, filing bankruptcy, lawyers, medical bills

Hubby is about to file bankruptcy, we are considering adoption in the future. If we start the process next year will be declined due to filing Chapter 13? We have a 3 bedroom home (which we will be keeping) and no children. I have had my job for a year now and hubby has been at his for 2 and a half years now, if that matters. Also, we are wanting to adopt a child that is in the system

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After trying to find ways to be able to take care of our responsibilities we have come to the last resort and that is to file bankruptcy. We don’t own any homes or any real property. what I am curious about is which is better chapter 7 or chapter 13. We want to be able to start saving a soon as it done and when feesible start rebuilding credit. Our credit card debt is only 00 which is a lot, but it could be worse. We just had two bad years with this one being the worse. I am looking for advice on the best way to go between the two. Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 and why.

We are not happy about doing this as we have tried everything. We don’t have anything of value and we have tried to pawn stuff but couldn’t get .00 for most. We live very modestly. So please do not answer this question if you are going to be negative.

Thank you so much. We want to do the right thing so we can start over and never have to do this again.
Thank you so much for all that has given advice so far. I guess I need to add just a few details to make the situation clearer.

As I stated it has been a bad 2 years, actually almost 3 years. I got real sick and had to leave my job and am now on disability. My husband took on a second job a year ago. He pays child support. Between the two of us we have 5 kids between the ages of 9-16. We have two vehicles, which one is in the shop. We also are surrendering this vehicle.
We have an attorney and he is recommending chapter 13. I (we) have a lot of medical bills. After I had to leave my job I couldn’t afford the cobra payments for continued health insurance. To maintain health insurance with my husbands employment (state worker) would have cost more than the cobra payments.
My ex- husband filed bankruptcy and I did not know that anything he had when we were together, came back to me.
I never thought I would get sick and have to quit work. I was not prepared.

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I can no longer afford my home. I have contacted my lender & HUD. I do not qualify for any programs. I am 3 months behind on my mortgage now, and I am planning to file for bankruptcy. Should I rent before I file bankruptcy or should I wait until I am kicked out of my home? I am afraid that if I wait I will have a hard time getting into a rental, and I am also afraid that if I jump into a rental that would look really bad when I file for Chapter 13. Either way I am not able to afford this house, and need to move. Any advise?
I have some pets that I am not willing to surrender and found a rental property that the property manager is willing to work with me, and accept my pets, and it is affordable. I also have two small children, and don’t want to take the chance of being homeless. If I stay in this home until I get kicked out I would be saving money, but I will need all that money just to secure a new rental, so that really wouldn’t be to an advantage. I have looked into short selling my home too, but that is not possible at this point. Does it look bad if you are in a rental when you file?

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We had filed chapter 13 last October. The payments were so high we just couldn’t make the payments. The bankruptcy courts dismissed our case for non-payments. Are we eligible to file for chapter 7? Will we lose our home? We live in Ohio if that makes any difference at all. What should we expect to happen?

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I need to file bankruptcy within the next 3 months. The only problem is all of my past due student loans. Can I file chapter 13 on those or are the exempt all together?

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A chapter 13 bk is likely in my future. I’m looking for some real world pros and cons about this scenario:

I’m in chap 13 and making my payments, and I see a 00 auto repair coming at me. Would the trustee let me slide on 00 worth of payments to take care of the critical auto need ? IE, how do judges handle unanticipated expenses that happen while you’re in chapter 13 ?

The other alternative that I see is – stop paying my mortgage and bank those funds. Hire the bk attorney, get it all ready to file, then sit on it. Keep ignoring the mortgage and accumulate some cash until the foreclosure sale is imminent, THEN have my attorney file the chapter 13 to stop the foreclosure and add the mortgage arrears into the payment plan. This gives me a cash cushion to handle the surprise expenses.

Comments please ?

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We filed for Chapter 13 to protect the house in Foreclosure. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we may have to let the house go back to foreclosure and change Bankruptcy to Chapter 7 – what happens in a 7? What can the courts/creditors take from you if you owned a home that was lost? Hubby is worried the courts can come in and take everything – like collections and TVS, etc.
Do you have a Chap 7 story to tell – good or bad?

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a chapter 7 or a chapter 13? I have a sale date on my property coming up…loan modification is out of the question..I have credit card debt that I cannot and have not paid for..and Im ready to file..please tell me which one will stop (Temporary..my foreclosure until I have alternatives?)

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I am going to file for bankruptcy, and I will not be keeping my home. Should I secure a rental before my credit is shot? Will it affect my bankruptcy filing?
I do qualify for bankruptcy, and I do have a bankruptcy attorney. I will be filing a chapter 13.

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Through no one else’s fault but my own, I find myself not being able to pay my bills.

Here are the numbers as I’ve figured them out: I make about 2400 month after taxes. My essential bills (apartment, car, phone) cost me 2013 a month. My unsecured debt monthly payments are 1390. If you do the math, you’ll see that I can’t afford to pay all of my bills. I was using my GI Bill benefits to help pay for the bills, but even when I was getting the full amount, I was still not able to pay my bills.

My total secured debt is 29000. This includes my car and bike (more on this in a moment). My total unsecured debt is 21000.

My questions are:

1. Will I qualify for Chapter 7? I understand Chapter 13 is like a payment plan, but I’m not even sure I would be able to do that given the debt I have.

2. If I qualify for Chapter 7, will I be able to keep my car but return my motorcycle? I currently make payments on both. Buying the motorcycle was a very bad move on my part and I regret doing so.

3. Is the amount of debt I have too low to consider bankruptcy? The overall amount does not look that large (I know people with more on just a couple of credit cards) but the monthly payments are killing me, even after I attempted to make arrangements.

I know I made some mistakes and I deserve to be ridiculed, but I don’t think there’s anything you can say that can make me feel worse. I’m hoping someone can give me some advice rather than insulting me.

Thanks.
I’m from the USA.

Technorati Tags: apartment, bad move, bankruptcy, car phone, chapter 13, chapter 7, credit cards, gi bill benefits, math, motorcycle, secured debt, unsecured debt

I am in the process of filing chapter 13. My trustee recommends that I seek the advice of a lawyer. However, a lawyer is not in the budget right now. The trustee says that only a few cases will be successful without an attorney. Are there any trustees or attorneys out there that could give me a few tips for making my own case successful? Any sure fire ways to be sure I am successful on my own with this case? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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My ex-wife just told me that she is filing chapter 13. From the research I’ve done online, it looks like I have to prepare for the debt that she was assigned in the divorce decree to come back to me. Q1) Is this how it works? Q2) What kind of lawyer do I need to hire to challenge this? Q3) What are my rights and obligations? It’s hard to find information about bankruptcy if you’re on the receiving end. Where can I get more information???

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My husband and I are currently in a Chapter 13. We have made all our payments on time since 2005. My husband was laiod off in April 2008. And I was just laid off. Any suggestions? Do we have alternatives? There is no way at this point that we can continue to make those payments. We are barely paying our mortgage each month.

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I attempted to file Chapter 7 today but because of the new bankruptcy laws it seems that I make too much money to file. I was offered Chapter 13 but really despite the law that says I make too much…I really don’t have any extra funds to pay. I am married but filing bankruptcy by myself however the courts look at both incomes. What are my alternatives?

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