Married filing alone, 100% plan, other questions...

[NYHusband]

Morning all. I've been reading the forums, lots of great info hear and I've learned alot. I do have some questions about my situation that maybe someone can answer.

I currently have proximately $65,000 in unsecured debt, all in my own name and not my wife's. With our income, I can just make minimums on everything but that's not getting us anywhere. I did a 1 year 0% plan with Citibank (that card down from $22,500 to $19,500) but now it's over and they're turning the interest back on.

We are current on all payments. I am considering filing chapter 13 on my own, and want to know the impact it will have on her credit report.

- Household income - $150,000 pretax and healthcare/401k deductions
- No kids, live in NY.
- Mortgage - in her name alone (bought before marriage)
- My car - joint loan, 0% for 60mos, want excluded
- Boat (that I WISH we could sell but are very upside-down) - joint loan, want excluded

We only have one joint credit card, and it's a small balance. If I juggle money for a couple months we can pay it off and close the account before filing.

Will anything show up on her credit for the joint secured loans (car and boat) if they are excluded from the filing?

I can do a 100% repayment on my unsecured debt over 5 years. It's the never ending interest that has kept me for years from getting anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

[woeisme]

You CANNOT exclude ANY of your debts from the filing, that's considered fraud. If you reaffirm the debts that both you and spouse are on (which shouldn't be a problem since you say will be paying others at 100%, so objections unlikely) there should be minimal impact on her credit. If the BK does show up on the credit report, she can dispute it or add a statement that is not her BK case, but co-signers, and make statement that account is being paid as agreed. If amt owed is really small on the credit card, might be ok to pay it off ahead of time, but payments summing over $600 shortly before filing could raise a red flag. Again, if you are confirming into a 100% plan, probably not an issue, but just so you know that it's a possibility this will open you up for more scrutiny. Good luck! I totally hear you on the interest payments keeping you a slave to debt forever.

[NYHusband]

I was under the impression that you can exclude secure loans from the filing, and pay them as usual?

[woeisme]

They aren't excluded from the filing, they still need to be listed, but yes, some trustees allow you to pay secured loans outside of the plan payment that goes through their office, but it is still "in the plan", if that makes sense. A few nasty trustees don't even allow this though, they make ALL payments go through their office so they can collect their percentage on even the mortgage, but most allow you to pay those kinds of things directly, but are still part of the BK filing. For example, my mortgage and car payments are not included in my $400 trustee payment, but both had to be included in my list of creditors, and got notification of my BK filing.

[ccfriend]

Hello-
I filed without my husband. We had an auto loan, and two mortgages in both of our names. The debt is listed in the plan but I pay them outside the plan. I checked our credit reports a few months ago. My report has the the loans listed in Ch 13 but my husbands all say account in good standing and nothing about the bk.
The rest of the debt in my bk was just in my name. We did have a joint Kohls card but I paid that off before filing and actually it made it through the bk and we still get coupons for the card.