okay, had meeting with attorney tonight

[sofarindebt]

She advised us to wait a year to file because of all the recently incurred debt. She said since we just stopped making payments on our mortgage, we have til then to "save up" our money. My question is (I forgot to ask her), if we save up all this money, I am estimating about $1500/month for 8-10 months of no house payment, then file chapter 7, will the trustee want our money???

[miss puff]

Hi sofarindebt. I don't know the answer to that question but it's a good one and I am curious about it's answer.

[lrprn]

She advised us to wait a year to file because of all the recently incurred debt. She said since we just stopped making payments on our mortgage, we have til then to "save up" our money. My question is (I forgot to ask her), if we save up all this money, I am estimating about $1500/month for 8-10 months of no house payment, then file chapter 7, will the trustee want our money???

The trustee is very likely to want any cash in your accounts over $1000, maybe less. Our lawyer advised us to have less than $500 total in our account on the day we filed if we could manage it. A large amount of cash in your account is easy money for trustee to get his/her % cut and give the rest straight over to your creditors.

Help me understand here....you are not going to make your mortgage payments for a YEAR and your lawyer told you just save up that money?? How about using it for necessary and reasonable living expenses, car repairs, buy clothes, get health insurance, etc to keep the amount of cash low so the trustee won't be tempted to take it?

Also I assume you don't care about foreclosure and accept that you will lose your house if you don't make payments for that long, right? What state do you live in? Some states allow a faster foreclosure and eviction, others take a long time. Is yours is a "long time" state?

[sofarindebt]

I live in MN

Yes we have a 6-month redemption period.

[lrprn]

Yes we have a 6-month redemption period.

Here's a good link that explains home foreclosures in Minnesota - http://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosur...tate=Minnesota

Six months isn't a long time (although according to the information from the above website, you could have up to 12 months depending on your property type and mortgage). You could be evicted before your anticipated year is up. How long are you hoping to stay in your house?

[9877donna]

???

sofarindebt,Did your lawyer advise you to start making payments on those 3 credit cards that you opened and never made one payment on? Just curious about that.
It's hard to believe that even putting a year between the time you opened the cc's and the time you filed would make any difference if you never made a payment on any of them.Still screams 'fraud' to me.And I would think the cc's would sue way before then.
Anybody comment on this??
Donna

[miss puff]

Yes we have a 6-month redemption period.

Goodness, we live in MN too and are letting our house go. For all I know we could be neighbors LOL An attorney said we could stay in our house for a year too without paying.

[SinkingFast]

Minnesota is a State or Federal Exemption State. If you chose to use Federal and aren't using the Homestead Exemption to protect your house, you could protect over $9K in cash if you wanted as a WildCard. Maybe that's the line of thought the attny was going with.

But did the attny say anything about paying or not paying the CC's something??

[rrockinggramma]

I am in Michigan but the redemption law seems similar. I got behind in Oct of 00 on the mortgage. By March, we filed a chapter 7 (o1) and stopped making the mortgage payment and trying to keep up with it (neg equity/125 percent loan to value/bad bad situation) Sooo, to make a long story short, I lived in the house until June of 02 with no mortgage payment and no rent. Now I still didn't have any money because like an idiot I kept paying on my kids cars etc (should have let those go back too but didn't oh well, live and learn the hard way) At any rate, it is very possible to stay in a house for up to a year with no payments.

[sofarindebt]

to answer your questions..........(m)

we will time it right so we file before the actual eviction from our home.

She said it is highly unlikely a creditor will come forward after a year. By then they are in collections and it is hard to track back and forth when so many people file. If they do come forward, two of the cards are for $3000 and one of them is for $14,000, so they would probably settle for half. I will take that any day over the 100+K debt we have.

She said not to make a payment, let them go to collections. And if they want to fight me, we did have intent to pay. Half of our debt went in to finishing our basement, and our house was on the market for 7 mos with no luck. So our intent was to sell the house and pay off creditors. We also have an agent negotiating a short sale with our lender, but she said to just stay and keep the house for free for 8-12 mos. She said a short sale reports on your credit almost the same as foreclosure.

[rrockinggramma]

and that is sooooo true because we did a short sale and our credit report reports not only the foreclosure (short sale) but the deficiency balance of 73,000.00 Hopefully it will fall off our report now in the 7 year time frame and not the 10 year rule because they refuse to report it as included in our BK, zero balance.

[9877donna]

She advised us to wait a year to file because of all the recently incurred debt. She said since we just stopped making payments on our mortgage, we have til then to "save up" our money. My question is (I forgot to ask her), if we save up all this money, I am estimating about $1500/month for 8-10 months of no house payment, then file chapter 7, will the trustee want our money???

sofarindebt,May I make a suggestion? Just to say get a second opinion.Make an app't with another attorney for a free consultation and see what they say about your situation.
JMHO.
Donna

[SinkingFast]

sofarindebt,May I make a suggestion? Just to say get a second opinion.Make an app't with another attorney for a free consultation and see what they say about your situation.
JMHO.
Donna

I agree with Donna here. If you've only seen one attny, maybe make a couple other Consult appts with different attnys. Get some different points of view.

Don't prejudice the other attnys by telling them what you've already been advised. Just see what each one has to say.

[FoolAndHisMoney]

She said not to make a payment, let them go to collections. And if they want to fight me, we did have intent to pay.

How do you plan on proving that you had the "intent" to pay when you didn't make one payment? Once a judge sees that, your credibility will be shot. Of course your attorney will say not to worry. They will charge more money to defend you in court win or lose.

I agree with donna & sf. You may want to further research this with another attorney and possibly make some good faith payments.

[9877donna]

Exactly.....

[QUOTE=FoolAndHisMoney;70652]How do you plan on proving that you had the "intent" to pay when you didn't make one payment? Once a judge sees that, your credibility will be shot. Of course your attorney will say not to worry. They will charge more money to defend you in court win or lose.

I totally agree with FoolAndHisMoney.You hit the nail on the head.
Donna