Help!! Not sure what to do....

[sly777]

All,

I've done a considerable amount of financial damage over the past several years due to gambling and although I am now free of the Casino, I have a ton of debt. I'm very concerned as I have two kids (a son who is 7 and a daughter who is almost one) and will not be able to save up any money for them for college due to all the bills I have to pay.

Here's my situation:

-I make 120K a year, wife doesn't work, so that's my total income.

-I have two mortgages on the home that I live in totaling 470K, my house is worth 460K according to Zillow.

-I am a co-borrower on a second home which my parents live in. That mortgage is 170K. The home is not worth what we owe.

-I have several credit cards with debts totaling 60K.

-I have an SBA Business Loan of another 68K for a business that no longer exists. ( I took this one out for my brother in law to help him start the business. I found out that it is now considered unsecured debt since the business doesn't exist anymore.

- I have one car which I own 2004 Lexus Rx-330 worth maybe 20K

- I have three other cars which are on my name, two of them are for family members, they pay the notes on them. The other one is mine, which is a Lexus IS-250. I got it around 2 months ago.

Well..My father who lives in the second home recently lost his job and it's looking like I will have to end up paying the mortgage on my parents house.

I make about 7K a month after taxes but if I added up my parents mortgage along with some other expenses. I would not be able to afford everything.

I went to see a couple of lawyers. The first one told me that I had to let my parents house go and that it cannot be considered during the bankruptcy repayment plan. She also said that I would end up paying about 60 cents on the dollar to my other unsecured debts for 5 years.

The second lawyer told me that the second home can be considered as I am taking care of my older parents. He told me he could try to get me into a 10 cent on the dollar repayment plan.

Which one is more accurate?

Also, it appears as though from what I can find online..that it is very hard to negotiate on the 2nd mortgage or HELOC. Is it possible to lower the balance owed on my HELOC during the bankruptcy. The two lawyers didn't mention anything about that.

What should I do short of selling everything and moving to Canada.

[lrprn]

First, congratulations on beating the gambling! That takes tremendous will power (like any addiction does) - way to go and a high five!

With your income, a Ch 13 is almost inevitable.

If I were you, I'd interview at least two more experienced bk lawyers in your area with extensive experience filing for folks with businesses and real estate.

Frankly, all you are going to get during a free initial consultation is a best guess on what to expect. The ONLY reliable way to know what's going to happen when you file in your complex situation is to retain the best bk lawyer you can find and then have the lawyer complete the Means Test and Schedules adding in all the local Ch 13 oddities and customs that vary from court to court to see where you really stand.

[momxx5]

LOL....move to Canada. The only reason it makes me laugh is that I was born in Canada, thus Canadian, and that is where my mom lives. So DH is often saying "let's just move to Canada". Think before you leap because the grass is not always greener.

What exactly do the lawyers think they can do? Are you looking to file a Ch 13? If so, you can do a means test to find out your DMI (disposable monthly income). That is the determining factor on how much you will have to pay back. There is a link somewhere on the forum to do the means test.

Although it shows a %, like 40cents/dollar, it really covers all debts that are included in BK and divides the DMI so everyone gets a piece of it, including your atty and the Trustee.

Things vary by state, greatly. What state are you in?
You also have to think about what you want to keep....your house, your father's home, which cars? In a BK you may have to give some of those up.

Good luck.

[relief13035]

I don't know if there is any difference, but we filed Chapter 7. We got to keep our 2nd home because it is the residence that my mother-in-law lives in and we take care of her.

[TLK]

Please look at the thread DON'T DO IT in general bankruptcy discussion forum. It's a way to survive without paying your unsecured credit card bebt. There are other things you need to paying besides the card companies .i.e. food, electric, insurance, mortgage.

[lrprn]

Please look at the thread DON'T DO IT in general bankruptcy discussion forum. It's a way to survive without paying your unsecured credit card bebt. There are other things you need to paying besides the card companies .i.e. food, electric, insurance, mortgage.

Before you do that, read this post by HHM from a few days ago when HHM finally figured out what TLK is proposing:

"Ok, that is pretty much what I figured, but I wanted TLK to at least mention what he was doing. For the benefit of board, here is what he is talking about.

Basically, he is talking about being a "professional debtor" (for lack of a better term). Yes, collection agencies do illegal things (in a civil sense, not so much in a criminal sense). And Federal and State laws do provide debtors with certain rights in relation to collection activity. What these sites offer (at least the legitimate ones) is "debt avoidance", but it is not really "debt solution". It's a fine line between what these sites promote and scam sites that say Income Tax in Unconstitutional. "

Ok, now knowing what HHM thinks about what TLK is proposing, you also need to understand that TLK's approach will never resolve all your debt. At least some of it will continue to chase you increasing exponentially due to late fees and penalties for years and years preventing you from climbing out of the debt hole quickly, preventing you from buying even a used car at reasonable rates, keeping you from buying a house, etc. If you don't plan to want or need those things for up to 20 years, then go ahead and head down this path.

Please don't be mesmerized by the idea you are choosing something that's better than filing a 13 and being done with it in 3-5 years - I don't think it is. But it is your choice to make. Just remember - there's no free lunch. Your life is impacted one way or impacted another way....but you still pay the piper for the debt.

[eddiep]

Not trying to be judgmental but wow! Why did you take on so much debt for your family? You need to learn how to say no, you are responsible for supporting your wife kids, not everybody you are related to.

[sly777]

OK everyone, After looking more into bankruptcy..I think I'm going to go with paying off all my credit cards over the next 5 years and try to get my parents out of their home into something they eventually will be able to afford to a point where they wont need to depend on me as much.

Chapter 13 sounds like it will only be able to reduce my credit card debt by 50% and allow me to pay back interest free but it will come with a terrible price to pay. Whether I file or not, I will have to live very frugal. The trustee will make me do that or I can choose to do that on my own where I control what I can do without asking the court for permission.

One thing I will attempt to do is try to lower the interest on most of my cards from 27% down to around 4% which I'm pretty sure I can do on some of the higher interest cards.
It's going to suck but as Irprn said above...I will have to pay the piper one way or the other.

I have a good job and have potential to make even more if I really focus on it. I have spent the last several years of my life at the Casino which was a lot of time that I could have spent actually trying to honestly earn money.

It's going to be a fairly long journey but I know I can win in the end and be able to provide a decent lifestyle for my family. Knowing what I know now, I will raise my kids with values where they will not get into the same predicament I am in now.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice and I'm really glad I found this forum because it does help me see things much clearer and gives me the confidence to keep going and working on finding resolutions without BK.

[eddiep]

That is probably a good choice. If you become commited to turning this around I bet you can do it. As you already know you will have to buckle down, we all do. I personally feel that the days of living beyond our means has gone by and now is the time to pay it back, however you choose to do it.

[catleg]

OK, so the problem I see here is the 128k in unsecured debt. Depending on how you amortize that, even if you get 0% over 5 years, to pay that down is about 2k and change a month.
I'm guessing the payments on the 460k in mortgages is about 3k a month, maybe up to 4k with taxes and insurance (?).
The parents mortgage is going to set you back at least another 1k a month, again maybe up to 2k with taxes and insurance.
So that pretty much accounts for your 7k take home, gives you -zero- to live on.
If the credit cards are charging 27% interest you're never going to dig out.
Are you putting anything away in a 401k? Do you have retirement savings in a 401k?

I know what you are going through. I went through the nightmare of compulsive gambling, thanks to a prescription drug I was taking for parkinson's.
By the time I got off that damn pill the damage had been done. Now one of the casinos is suing me for the last 5k in uncollected markers, you would think that having beaten me for 80k they would be happy. Nope. :-(

[TLK]

If you don't have the money to pay your unsecured debt and need the money to pay on other essential things, then consider a consumer protection attorney. The one I use is extremely successful. 20 years ago he was a BK attorney and finally realized that this wasn't the answer for a lot of people who couldn't afford to stay in 13. That's why he's doing what he does now. He saw that the system doesn't work for most people. Ask an BK attorney what the success/failure rate is for people in 13.

I hope that you will seriously consider this as an option.

[TLK]

Before you do that, read this post by HHM from a few days ago when HHM finally figured out what TLK is proposing:

"Ok, that is pretty much what I figured, but I wanted TLK to at least mention what he was doing. For the benefit of board, here is what he is talking about.

Basically, he is talking about being a "professional debtor" (for lack of a better term). Yes, collection agencies do illegal things (in a civil sense, not so much in a criminal sense). And Federal and State laws do provide debtors with certain rights in relation to collection activity. What these sites offer (at least the legitimate ones) is "debt avoidance", but it is not really "debt solution". It's a fine line between what these sites promote and scam sites that say Income Tax in Unconstitutional. "

Ok, now knowing what HHM thinks about what TLK is proposing, you also need to understand that TLK's approach will never resolve all your debt. At least some of it will continue to chase you increasing exponentially due to late fees and penalties for years and years preventing you from climbing out of the debt hole quickly, preventing you from buying even a used car at reasonable rates, keeping you from buying a house, etc. If you don't plan to want or need those things for up to 20 years, then go ahead and head down this path.

Please don't be mesmerized by the idea you are choosing something that's better than filing a 13 and being done with it in 3-5 years - I don't think it is. But it is your choice to make. Just remember - there's no free lunch. Your life is impacted one way or impacted another way....but you still pay the piper for the debt.

I disagree. statue of limitations applies; By law collectors can no longer contact you. If they do, and they will, you can then file suit against them! Isn't this a great country we live in! Please explain how you got to the 20 year figure? You can call it what you want, but I'm able to live, not survive ,and not have the BK system tell me how I will live.

[eddiep]

sly777
I would think long and hard before you become a "professional debtor". You have alot of assets and alot of debt. With two little ones that you want to send to college, not to mention all the other things they will need before then, I would think that you will want to clear up your credit sooner rather than later.

[lrprn]

Please explain how you got to the 20 year figure?

A professional debtor like yourself should know that in some states (just perhaps not yours), all a creditor has to do to extend the statute of limitations is show that you made a written promise to pay the debt, made a partial payment, or even admit the debt is yours. Any of these can re-age the SOL depending on state law. You may live in a state that doesn't allow re-aging, but that is not the case for many of our members.

Statutes of limitations vary widely by state, and by the type of debt. (See http://www.credit-repair-specialist....imitation.html for a listing of the SOLs by state.) Note 12 states have SOLs of 10-15 years for some types of debt, and even states with less yesrs can be extended well past 20 years if the debtor makes a mistake that opens the door to re-aging the debt. Sometimes creditors under certain circumstances in certain states may even be able to choose a state with a much longer SOL than the one you live in to bring suit against you.

Also some people erroneously believe that debts are erased after the statute of limitations has run out (are you are one of them?). Although the creditor's ability to sue you has been curtailed, it can still try other methods to persuade you to pay, including calls and letters. The debt can also be sold to another collector that can renew efforts to get you to pay. A legitimate debt is truly erased only when it's paid or erased in bankruptcy court.

You can call it what you want, but I'm able to live, not survive ,and not have the BK system tell me how I will live.

So this is the best choice for YOU - wonderful and a high five. However, whether you like it or not, it is most definitely not the best choice for everyone. You seem to think it is because you keep posting this to multiple threads. Accept the fact that most debtors don't want to go down the route you've chosen. It's nothing personal - just as you made your choice, others want to make theirs too. And their choice may not be yours. As you said, "Isn't America great?"

[Flamingo]

If you don't have the money to pay your unsecured debt and need the money to pay on other essential things, then consider a consumer protection attorney. The one I use is extremely successful. 20 years ago he was a BK attorney and finally realized that this wasn't the answer for a lot of people who couldn't afford to stay in 13. That's why he's doing what he does now. He saw that the system doesn't work for most people. Ask an BK attorney what the success/failure rate is for people in 13.

I hope that you will seriously consider this as an option.

"Professional Debtor?" Wow, that would look great on a resume! :-) Would that be right up there with 'Professional Gambler?" The reason a certain percentage of folks cannot make in a Chapter 13 is that they do not know how to budget and/or cannot change their lifestyle. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, in plain words. A Chapter 13 is based on your income, assets, debt, etc. at the time you file. The amount you are given to live on is sufficient but most folks look at it and being so used to being able to buy, buy, buy and spend, spend, spend, wring their hands and cry and state "how can we live on that!" It's very simple - budget, do without and learn to live on cash only.

A Chapter 13 is the best budget teacher in the world and legally erases debt from one's record and is only on your credit reports for 7 years from date of filing. If you are up to your ears in credit card debt and are missing payments, that information stays on also for 7 years. A "Professional Debtor" has to figure out how to dodge the bullet to stay out if it's way for a much longer term and take the risk of information popping up when least expected.

When it comes to high debts and the inability to pay due to whatever reason, there are only 3 good options; (1) don't pay and suffer the consequences; (2) stop spending and pay down the debts working with the creditors to lower percentage rates; or (3) file BK.