If you own, and stop paying the mortgage, with the intent to surrender the house after the BK, and have not yet secured a new place to live (rent)- what number would you use if any as living expense, if you are not currently paying your mortgage?
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"Starting again is part of the plan"
-Gloria Estefan -
Personally, I would use my current mortgage payment. It's still an expense, even if I'm not paying it, and soon enough you will be paying rent instead. But what you don't want to do is leave that space at $0! Use your current mortgage amount, or go ahead and find your new rental and use that number instead, but don't leave it $0. Either number is justifiable.
The last thing you want to do is give the trustee the impression that housing is not, and has not been, an ongoing and real expense for you. If necessary, you can explain it at the 341 *if asked*; if not asked, don't worry about it. Good luck!!!
Nolo Press book on filing Chapter 7, there are others too. (I have no affiliation with Nolo Press; just a happy customer.) Best wishes to you! -
I have to agree.
The forms ask for current info, not whether or not you can afford it. There IS a question whether or not you expect large changes in income or expenses, I believe, tho?"Starting again is part of the plan"
-Gloria EstefanComment
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We are in TN, and my lawyer asked us what we expected to pay in rent. I told him around $1800, which is $800 over the maximum allowable for rent. We are currently in our house but will be letting it go. Our payments are around $2800. Our lawyer used the maximum of ~$1000 for our rent but put in one of the schedules that our rent is going to be $1800. I would have felt better about using our current mortgage, but he said that since we are giving up the house we couldn't use the mortgage amount. Even so, we are still showing about a $300 loss after expenses every month using the maximum allowable rent amount......
Good luck
DadTLComment
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