I had spoken to several on the phone and chose this particular lawyer due to his experience and the fact that he is a trustee. His son is also a trustee, as part of his firm. It was a great meeting. He was very friendly. My husband and I were in there about two hours, during which he thoroghly reviewed the 41 page packet that we filled out until 2:00 a.m. last night. We were missing a few bits of information here and there, but he said we could get it to him soon.
He told us we were good candidates for the Chapter 7, which is great news because I really didn't want to deal with Chapter 13- sounded like too much hassle to me.
We are filing in my name only. I owe around $25,000 in credit card debt, along with some medicals bills, some of which we intend to pay off. My husband and I also have one credit card, around $3000 on it, in which we have jointly. The lawyer told us to hold off paying it and just wait and see. He said the card may or may not decide to go after my husband and they might just write it off. If they go after him, we could just pay it, rather than include him in the bankruptcy. We want to at least keep my husband's credit in tact.
So far, we have not defaulted on any bills- not our house, or any of our debt. We simply struggle to pay it each month. We pay around $900 each month in minimums to our debt and feel that we are not getting anywhere. Last I checked my credit score was about 720, so I am interested to see what filing Chapter 7 will do to it. At this point, I don't really care- I feel that the benefits of getting rid of this debt and actually being able to save will far outweigh what my credit score is. Besides, I don't intend to use credit for a long time after this is over. Actually, I will probaby get a small secured card to work on rebuilding my credit, but other than that, I don't want anything else to do with credit cards.
So, we have a bit of paperwork to work on, along with finishing our house refinance this week, and then next week we should be able to file! I am excited and hopeful that all goes smoothly. We were told that we should be able to keep our home and cars through the process, since we are below median.
OK- I will try to post another entry soon!