Do I have to wait 6 months?

[cptne33]

[okiemom2008]

From what I have read on here, if they see it as preferential payment on a certain thing they go after that person..not you. For example, if you pay back your family they will go after your family for what you paid them so they would go after Sears here..so who cares, right?

Not sure if this is how it works..just what I have read somewhere

[Keebler]

It seems to me that the Trustee may or may not decide to bother with Sears for such a small amount of money.

I guess there's some additional consideration if the fridge is collateral on the loan and then reversing the preferential payment might mean that it needs to be surrendered or be reaffirmed if you intend to keep it.

Even if the payment is deemed preferential, it usually doesn't keep you from getting a discharge. It might mean your case stays open for months while the funds are collected and paid out to creditors. By itself, the delay probably isn't a big deal.

I ended up getting good advice about medical expenses by waiting until the bulk of the trouble had passed before filing. It seems to me that the loss of a job might be the same kind of thing where you benefit by riding out the storm and then using bankruptcy to start again with a clean slate after the dust all settles.

During the time we waited, we budgeted and saved receipts and did everything we could to have reasonable living expenses that used up our income. By the time we filed, we were essentially living as we would after the discharge. We found it wasn't as easy as it seemed and the months worth of training helped a lot.

[Nicollette]

From what I have read on here, if they see it as preferential payment on a certain thing they go after that person..not you. For example, if you pay back your family they will go after your family for what you paid them so they would go after Sears here..so who cares, right?

Not sure if this is how it works..just what I have read somewhere

Not exactly sure if this would fall under the preferential payment, but I have a friend that filed a Ch 7 BK earlier this year, and she was being garnished for a defiency balance on a car that was repoed. It took longer than she thought for her case to discharge because the Trustee went after the car loan creditor and retrieved the funds that they had garnished from my friend's paycheck and distributed the funds amoungst other creditors.

[keepmine]

Since the payment is over $600 you need to wait 90 days to avoid any preference payment issues.
And, it's nothing to you. Should the trustee have an issue, theyll sue Sears for the return of the money.

[willsurvive]

I agree anything over $600 witin 90 days before filing looks like preferential payment. If you wait until one day over the 90 days you are okay. I would look back to the exact day in Sept, you are probably close to 90 days right now. If it's before 90 days, the trustee would go back to Sears for the money, not you.

[cptne33]

Wonderful....thank you all for the advice. I think I agree with Keebler that I may want to wait a few months to see what all happens with my wife losing ehr job and how taht financially affects us. Then file and get a clean slate while already having established a budget for what life after BK would be like. Since I am still current on all my payments I may even be ok stop paying the CCs so that I can afford to pay the attorney and still not receive too many harrassing calls.
Does anyone have any idea when the harrassing calls start?

[Keebler]

Wonderful....thank you all for the advice. I think I agree with Keebler that I may want to wait a few months to see what all happens with my wife losing ehr job and how taht financially affects us. Then file and get a clean slate while already having established a budget for what life after BK would be like. Since I am still current on all my payments I may even be ok stop paying the CCs so that I can afford to pay the attorney and still not receive too many harrassing calls.
Does anyone have any idea when the harrassing calls start?

They don't start instantly when you're expecting them but within a month or so you've pretty much got everyone's attention.

If you weigh your choices and convince yourself that Bankruptcy will work for you it makes the calls easier to deal with because you know they really can't hurt you.

You can't tell creditors you have no intentions of paying them but the fact is that Bankruptcy gives you that right. For as long as you can, the calls will involve telling creditors that you CAN'T pay them and you're doing everything you can to fix the problem. (Everything except for making a payment, that is.)

By choosing this for yourself you're accepting the fact that your credit will be ruined for some period of time. For me, the pain of ruined credit seemed small compared to the pain of digging out from underneath our debt. In fact, credit isn't my friend any more and I wouldn't mind too much if I never have it again.

Bankruptcy will mess up your credit score and late payments with charge-offs will to. You can see what happened to me in my signature below.