Another Queston For You

[ARO96]

ARO - Have you thought about life after the bk? Assuming all your bills other than house and car are discharged in your bk, will you be able to pay all your bills? Utilities, taxes, food, clothes, etc?

I have read your posts here and it does not sound 100% sure that you can. I certainly hope you can, and am not trying to add stress, but please note that the trustee will take a long look at this and will not allow you to reaffirm if he does not believe it is in your best financial interests - in other words, he will not let you keep the house and car if he thinks there is a good chance you will fall behind again in the near future.

Hopefully, you will be able to make these payments and stay current on everything else.

Keep the questions coming and hang in there. It most definitely gets better.

We will be fine afterwards. Basically what happened we purchased a truck, pretty nice and expensive. Less then six months later, my hubby's company demanded 1.8 billion back in paycuts from the employees to keep the company out of bankruptcy. The employees voted for it, but after struggling for several years, most of the employees have filed bk. Ironic isn't it, employees keep company out of bankruptcy, but now they are filing bk in droves. Anyway, before the paycuts, we had the truck and other debt, but at the time, we could afford it, so the paycuts have really hurt. We did speak to the bank who has the title for the truck to see if they could work something out with us, but they refused. Gave them a letter from the company showing how much less money we would be making, all they said is sorry. The truck was financed under our old income, which was higher.

The attorney we are using has handled 1000's bk filings for employees at my hubby's company. She actually commended us for sticking it out as long as we could, but she was also surprised we held out this long.

The recent problems with the mortgage has just been that this summer, we've had nonstop repairs on things. We've just gotten really behind. Everything was breaking down this summer, so we got a bit behind in the mortgage.

I can say this, even if my hubby gets his pay restored (which could happen in a couple of years or so), we've learned nothing is guaranteed. Our life afterwards will be very careful.

[ARO96]

how long before you have the money for the mortgage catch up, if you paid the attorney the 1800 he needs? you owe 1200 on the mortgage? if you would have the money before the next payment would be due, then I would pay the attorney, start the process, and then pay the mortgage as quickly as you can. The mortgage company would have to file for relief of stay to do anything and that takes some time and usually by the time the hearing is scheduled, if you are all caught up, the mortgage lender would then petition the court to remove their petition to lift the stay. Only do this if you can really be all caught up by the Oct payment.

Like I said, I will pay the Aug mort on Friday, just leaves Sep. I have a few more things we can sell that will total probably 1200 or close to it, which will pay the sep mort. Don't have money for the late fees, hoping I can work out a deal on that somehow and hoping the late fees are not what is considered "up to date".

After that we will be up to date on everything, except the car which we are including in the bk. Should be fine after that now that my attorney said to stop paying the credit cards and car.

We've just had a real rough summer with everything breaking down. Probably should have stopped paying the credit cards this summer, but we wern't talking about filing at the time. Just recently made the decision to do BK after alot of my hubby's employees said they did and it was the best thing for them. Attorney agrees with us.

[lrprn]

Don't have money for the late fees, hoping I can work out a deal on that somehow and hoping the late fees are not what is considered "up to date".

I wouldn't hold my breath on this, ARO. Your mortgage lender is very likely to say the late fees are due as well and given the poor history of others here who have tried to reason with their lenders, it's unlikely you are going to get much of a concession if any. Also keep in mind that whatever you save now before filing will come back as a 1099 at tax time - you'll pay taxes on whatever dollar amount is forgiven.

Since this is the first month you haven't paid your non-secureds, you'll have 1-2 more months before your original creditors either write you off or sell your debt to collectors, then another 2-3 more months before the collectors start getting serious about collection. Slow down, take the time, and do this right.

Although it feels like you should rush to file and you may want to get it out of the way, right now nothing is going to change if you wait another 2-3 months before filing to catch up on your car and mortgage payments plus the late fees in full and remove any chance of objections from your mortgage lender when you do file.

Bankruptcy pre-planning is the order of the day when you aren't filing in an emergency to stop an immediate foreclosure or something like that - luckily you aren't in that situation. Run waiting to file until everything is caught up by your lawyer and see what he/she thinks about the risk in your situation. Good luck - keep us posted!

[ARO96]

I wouldn't hold my breath on this, ARO. Your mortgage lender is very likely to say the late fees are due as well and given the poor history of others here who have tried to reason with their lenders, it's unlikely you are going to get much of a concession if any. Also keep in mind that whatever you save now before filing will come back as a 1099 at tax time - you'll pay taxes on whatever dollar amount is forgiven.

Since this is the first month you haven't paid your non-secureds, you'll have 1-2 more months before your original creditors either write you off or sell your debt to collectors, then another 2-3 more months before the collectors start getting serious about collection. Slow down, take the time, and do this right.

Although it feels like you should rush to file and you may want to get it out of the way, right now nothing is going to change if you wait another month or two before filing to pay the late fees on your mortgage in full and remove any chance of objections from your mortgage lender when you do file.

Bankruptcy pre-planning is the order of the day when you aren't filing in an emergency to stop an immediate foreclosure or something like that - luckily you aren't in that situation. Run waiting for a month or two so you can pay off your late fees by your lawyer and see what he/she thinks. Good luck - keep us posted!

I told my hubby we might have to consider delaying the filing as well. By selling the motorcycle, I can pay the Sep Mort and late fees right away. That keeps me caught up on the mort. The other things I can sell will total around 1200 which I can give the attorney then I will only owe 600 to the attorney. As of yesterday I owe two months to the car, and I need to delay that from getting repoed til we file, but I can dig up one payment on the car which should by me some time before that gets repoed. Called my attorney this morning, she is calling me back after she is done with her client.

Didn't know anything about the taxes, thanks for the warning.

I've learned more in the last week then I probably ever learned in all my years in school. LOL.