Chp 7 with 96,000 income

[Scooter10]

My wife and I have high income.
96K combined.
We pass the means test due to our large MTG 4,000, daycare, resonable autos, student loans, and all the other allowable exceptions. But on the schedule J we are negative $700, and this is shaving money off of everything.

Will this force us into a 13 because it is not pratical?
Or once we pass the means test nothing else matters.

We do not plan on holding onto the house but have been advised we need it for the means test. We will have a large amount of disposable income if we did not have such a large mortgage.

I am also surrending 2 investment properties in the BK.

Thank you.

[ameliabedilia]

If you give more information we can better help.
What state are you in?
What is your total debt?
Where are you planning on living after you give up the house?

[Scooter10]

Florida 1yr6mo
California before that 20 years

110K cc
370K 1st mtg primary residence (30year fix, but taxes and insurance make payment to 4K)
330K on investments properties (surrending)

renting in Florida or possibly living with family in FL

Thank you.

[needafreshstart]

If the main reason you pass the means test is due to the high mortgage payment and your surrendering the house, that could be a problem. I was close to being in a similar situation and my lawyer told me it was a 50-50 chance that the trustee wouldn't object. You really need to talk to several lawyers in the district you live in to see how the courts are handling that. I would think there would be a good chance the trustee is going to object and say you will have plenty of disposable income once you are no longer having to pay that mortgage.

[ohwell]

We have the same situation, mortgage had us pass the means test. It was a risk, but a low one per our atty. We are same income, same CC debt figures, and had a higher mortgage on our primary residence. We moved before filing and had our rent down on our schedule J, made us negative around 700 dollars as well. We did not state we were surrendering our home, our atty told us that it isn't consumer debt (i.e. our car loan) therefore we did not have put that on our intentions. Our home went up for auction during the bk(don't know if it sold though).

Our last day to object was yesterday, nothing heard from our atty either. All is quiet.
I asked our atty about using the home(I was worried), and he said that is the bk law, and therefore we take advantage of it. We also have taxes and other priority debt that helped us pass the means test.

We do however have to go to a reaffirmation hearing to keep our only car, since we are negative on the schedules, not worried about it at this point, but since our discharge is hopefully coming soon, don't care either way what happens. That is all we reaffirmed was the car. We also had PMSI's, and a few of them wanted to reaffirm, but we ignored their request and played chicken - they can call us and bug us for their collateral(furniture and appliances, doubt it), but obviously its not worth the bother. Our atty obviously knows what he is doing, I was scared to death that we were going to be a 13. Didn't happen!

We are in Ca, however I see that you are in Florida now(after typing my response). I don't know how it would go there for you all, it might raise suspicion to get 7 if your properties are in California, you didn't specify that. that can make a difference from what I understand. Not sure though.

Good luck to you!