Newbie Here--Need Help With Questions on Married Person, Filing Singly, Insider Payme

[moe]

Hi--

I am not sure if I am going to file. It would definitely be Chapter 13.

My spouse for employment reasons cannot file. This makes things complicated...

I have to file as a single filer, if I did file.

My case would be very complicated if I did file and this is why I hesitate.

Main questions

1. We mostly have separate debts but we do have one card that is shared. I was going to transfer the balance from that card to a lower interest rate card. But if I do this, and file bankruptcy, won't this be a problem?

What are my options there? Can I not transfer the balance?

I do think I have to file in a year anyway (see below). Or even two years. Because I have to pay back a relative who cannot know that I declared bankruptcy. So I basically have to do this in a long enough period where it will not show up as a favorable payment (or whatever you call it--insider payment?) or a where it won't look like a transfer of assets.

2. My husband has a card on one of my debts. (I think I got this credit card prior to the marriage.) Can I just tell the credit card company I don't want him to have a card anymore? It shows up on his credit report but he's never used the card. I don't know why I got it for him?

Does his possession of the card make him a co-debtor?

3. Our income has increased recently. But we used to be super broke. We had terrible unemployment/underemployment. That problem seems to have lessened (YAY!) but should we be in a big rush to file? I assume we will pay back more because of our increased income. Will it be a huge amount?

I guess what I fear with Chapter 13 is that we still will not have enough money to live. I am only wanting to discharge my debt eventually because we are at that point where we don't have enough money to pay bills each month.

4. My family cannot know about my BK but my father did a legal case for me where he got some money in a settlement for a car accident. He kept a bunch of it because he had given me money to replace the car after the accident.

So I have to give him a big check of $12,000. And I can't say no.

So doesn't this mean I have to wait a year to file? I don't have any documentation that it is a DEBT though. I can't get documentation. So will it look like a transfer of assets?

Does that mean that, if I did file, I'd have to wait two year???

Wow.

I'M JUST REALLY CONFUSED. I don't want to declare bankruptcy. I'm not even sure it is worth our while. But I don't want to go deeper into debt and I cannot pay bills each month. We are always behind. The credit cards take up most our salary.

[momofthree]

Are you sure you'd be in a chapter 13?

[moe]

Yes, I had someone do the means test for us. We were almost under it but we just got in and now with the new job my husband has, we will definitely be Chapter 13 filers. (Unless he loses his job again, God forbid.)

Is there an advantage here to being Chapter 7? If I'd thought of it before, maybe I could have been Chapter 7. But of course I was working a second job so that put us a teeny bit over.

[MSbklawyer]

Is there an advantage here to being Chapter 7? If I'd thought of it before, maybe I could have been Chapter 7. But of course I was working a second job so that put us a teeny bit over.

Yes, there's a HUGE

[moe]

Hi--

No, that ship has sailed. My husband got a good job! So I am happy but also deeply in debt due to all the time my husband did not have a job or had a job that paid very poorly.

My real question is: Can I file at all? I cannot let my family know about my bankruptcy. I owe my father $12,000. I have to pay him. Isn't it the case that, if I file, they would force him to give the money back and he would have to be listed as a creditor? OR they would require that I prove the loan, so I'd be proving I wasn't transferring assets.

I read here that the look back for insider payments was 1 year and the look back for asset transfer was 2 years. Is that correct?

I just received this settlement THIS WEEK. Right when I realized bankruptcy might be my only option to stay afloat.

It's a complex matter since the money I am paying him out of is the result of a car accident settlement. (He paid for my replacement car out of the accident. The car that was destroyed was worth nothing but I have a child and was so rattled by the accident I wanted a safer car...which he fronted money for.)

So if I pay him $12,000 it will either look like transfer of assets or look like a debt payment, no? But I'm not allowed to do either.

I just don't know how we're going to make it.

My question was really--is there any advantage, given this issue, to Chapter 7? But ignore that question. It is clearly not relevant.

[MSbklawyer]

Well start at the beginning:

Where are you?
How many in your household?
Household Income?

[moe]

Oh darn, I posted and my post was lost!

We're in Massachusetts.

We now have about $122,000 gross income in salary.

We have a two family home that we cannot let go of for family reasons. If you considered the rental $ from that income (we are under water in the mortgage) then our income is a lot higher. But I think they somehow calculate debt against it?

The reason we almost qualified for Chapter 7 was that we had a lot less money coming in the last few years. I think our gross was between 82-89,000, maybe somewhat less. So when the person doing the means test checked it out, we were below. But we had put charges on our cards at the end of December and had to wait, the lawyer said.

So by the time we waited, this issue of the car accident settlement, etc. came up.

If you went back over the last six months of income, it would not be $122,000. That is just from new luck we have had with a raise I got and a new job for my husband.

The reason I wanted to file is that we've had five years of much lower income--in the 60s or 70s. So we got into debt. Now our credit card payments are over $2000 a month and that is not sustainable.

[momofthree]

# of ppl in your household?

And the 6-month look back is just that: a look back at the last 6 months. If you add up all of your paystubs from the last 6 months (pay period ending in Feb), and multiply it by 2, what number do you come up with? This is the figure they'll use to calculate your annual income for means testing...

[moe]

3 people--mother, father, child.

I'd be filing. Husband would not be filing.

I don't know EXACTLY what the means test would be. But when I got a lawyer to do it for me, it was over.

I think I have to go with a new lawyer because I've emailed her and called her to answer these questions and she doesn't answer my emails or calls.

I used to work for lawyers so I kind of know how it goes but I think she lacks support staff.

The thing that makes it complex is the rent money. I don't know where the rent money goes--into the income file? It's just used to pay the mortgage and we're under water and that somehow affected things.

Crud. I have to meet with another lawyer. I'm suddenly realizing.

As for just take home pay it's in the mid-80s. I think between 84-88,000.

We were very close, somehow.

But the real issue is the fact that my father cannot know I am declaring BK and I am giving him 12,000 out of this settlement from a car accident I had in 2007.

So what do I do about that? That's an insider payment. Lawyer was saying it could be handled as some kind of 'wild card'.

I know this sounds odd but we have two cars and neither are in my name. Since my husband wasn't working much, he always had the time to go to the DMV! So I have no assets. Our cars are really old but might be worth about $16,000. It doesn't matter though--they are his cars, not my cars.

Does anyone know what to do about the $12,000 I have to give my dad out of this car accident settlement. IT IS THE WORST LUCK. It's crazy because they were so proud of themselves for getting the settlement and all I could think about was how screwed I was by it.

My rea