Bankrupt? tell me all you know about doing it?

[TriciaHowe]

http://www.bkforum.com/forums.php

This is a great website that helped us a lot. Sorry you are going through this but you are not alone. Ours was just discharged last month. Please feel free to PM me if there is anything I can help with.

Tricia

 

[sonew123]

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thank you!! Ill look into it Ps love your avatar!

 

[sonew123]

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Thanks Joanne! Ill look through this one too-everyone has been sending me great websites-hope I can do some of it-or at least hope they let us do some of it!

 

[Sjisty]

Ok, so now it's my turn. We have always lived within our means. Yes, we had excellent credit and used credit cards, but never let the balances get too out of control, at least until the economy took a nose dive. My husband is a carpenter in Florida. First people started leaving the state in droves because of the high cost to insure their homes. Then, of course, housing dropped straight into the toilet.

Our mistake #1 - We refinanced our home to come up with the down payment on our dream home, a small fixer-upper with a little property in the country. We bought this home and were doing fine with two house payments while the original house was on the market. Then hubby got laid off of his job of 10 years (carpenter) and was out of work for eight months. We struggled and continued to pay two house payments, sometimes having to resort to credit cards (mistake #2). In 2009 hubby got called back to work for a few months. We worked with creditors, calling monthly and usually paying the minimum payments, pretty much getting nowhere but the creditors were happy. Then lay-off #2 nine months ago, plus a slow-down at my job. After two years on the market, the original house sold (short sale). This, of course, negatively effected our credit, so all of our creditors cut us off. Not a problem as we had already stopped using the cards.

Here we are now. Hubby is still unemployed. I have called a bankruptcy attorney and am awaiting our appointment. I don't know what to expect, but have been told we should be able to retain our house and vehicles. This is not a step we took lightly. We are not trying to get out of our obligations, but the stress is affecting my health and our marriage. I don't think the president is going to bail me out, so I have to do something positive myself.

So, after reading everybody's comments on this thread, I think it is wonderful that some of you are able to weather this financial storm. That doesn't make you better than us, nor does it make us wrong. We are not "bad people" for asking for help from the court system.

Sonew, I will be your "bankruptcy buddy" through this. Hopefully there will be a rainbow at the end of our storm soon. Good luck!

 

[sonew123]

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Hey Hunny thanks for your comments! Im so so rry you have to go throught this-We went to a 3rd attorney yesterday and he is the one we will keep. Very kind , sweet, intelligent and and very experienced in that area. He will try to get us in on Chapt 7 but more like 13 will fit us-we have ALOT of work to do on our part to get this going but I feel I can breath easier today for the first time in a long time. It's heartbreaking and DH is broken over it-he kept asking the lawyer if there was anything we could do to avoid bankruptcy and the poor lawyer just keep saying no-you are at the end and cannot do this anymore or you will even lose the hosue your in if we dont concentrate on just that payment to catch up and stay on good terms with them. SO we are-The marriage and the tolls it takes are there-but I know we can get through it-Ill keep you updated on this post for sure.

 

[seminolewind]

Sorry it's happening, Sonew. It's hard enough to pay off debt, then it's hard to remain at 0, then it's hard to remain above zero. As far as I know, in New York, they cannot take your house or car, and you can also elect to keep some debts out of bankruptcy.

There are companies that can consolidate what you owe into one payment per month at a lower interest rate. There is also cashing in your retirement-above all, your debt interest rate needs to be resolved before anything else.

Since the 2 cabins are on your property, if so, I don't think they can take them either.

 

[sonew123]

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Nope we get to keep the house and vehicles-that's it as long as we remain current in payments with them -thats outside bankruptcy-the cabins wont be touched because thats part of our house property and they are so close to eachother- the rest of our stuff we have already sold or consolodated as much as possible to save and pay bills-they cant take anymore but the other properties and we are ok with that too.

 

[rachaelc]

I had just recieved a summons to court for a CC bill and after reading the thread last night, I decided to see if I could get a free consult today and I did. Very good firm here in town, very good fee(affordable) and I will proceed with a bankruptcy. I have always payed debts , good credit, just last 3 years ,series of unfprtunate events climaxing in my husband being unemployed for 4 months this summer with NO income, hired for 1 month ,layed off and unemployment for 5 months, there is no way we can start paying off on all these bills, in a little time yes, but when they are suing us and want the money right now.. He just went back to work about a month ago.

Rachael C
mother of all

 

[sonew123]

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Im so sorry. My DH being a contractor and started being a part time real estate agent-we thought we could climb out of the financial cruch. Never happened-its been 7 months since he sold a house and that extra $ from the year before is what coasted us into this year. He has a ton of houses listed but no one in the market locally:-( For the last 7 months it was virtually no income on his behalf and that hurt us real bad-hence why we have to do this-there was no way of repaying anything even though we have tried for ht last 2 1/2 years. Hang in there I hope it gets better..

 

[WriterofWords]

Well, I'm making my appt. with a lawyer too, so looks like we'll have friends to hold hands with during it.