I've been lurking around this forum now for about the last month or two and must say have learned a great deal. I did post a little something under another post as to why I am contemplating bankruptcy but thought I would put our circumstances out there and see if I can get some of your feedback and put some of my lingering concerns to better rest. Sorry this is so long but I want to give you as much info as possible.
We started out by visiting CCS who basically told us to seek out an attorney and I was able to pry out a recommendation. From there we had a consultation with that attorney and really liked her right from the get go. I've since contacted her with additional questions via email and she was quick to get back to me and we had a good conversation by phone so we're feeling very good with her and plan to make our first payment toward retainer next week.
All in all she quoted a total cost including filing fee of $1300. When asked if we should have any need to prepare for any additional representation costs she said her fees would fully cover the bankruptcy filing and proceedings with additional fees becoming due only if she was forced to defend us against something brought to light during that we had neglected to disclose to her prior (I.e. Lying about the existence of an asset etc). We've got nothing to hide so I don't think this will be an issue.
I think we are a fairly straightforward chapter 7 to be filed in the Northern District of New York. One question that remains for me in figuring out our means test figures is whether we are a household of 3 or a household of 4 because my 20year old daughter is a full-time college student living most of the year in a dorm who we continue to claim on our tax return. The attorney seemed to dismiss our concern quickly indicating she could be included for the household size but said even without her we seemed to be able to come in under Median. By my calculations, I find the same to be true when looking at the regular salary income only but the margin without her is a little closer. This concerns me a bit with regards to timing our filing because in the last few months as we were getting a bit desperate to keep up with everything we took loans in April from our whole life insurance policies totaling $1600 and I cashed out a profit sharing plan in May amounting to about $800. If I understand what I have read here correctly these one time payment items would be included as "income" in the six month look back is this correct? If so, they would end up putting us a bit over median for a 3 person household but not even close for a 4 person household . Course when I go through the means test with a 3 person household we come out considerably negative so I guess it doesn't really matter but I would sure feel better if we didn't have to worry about going through the means test to get there. Out of curiosity if she were included in household size would we have to include her meager income as well though she does not contribute to the household and doesn't make enough to file her own return? Worse yet her student loans?
My next concern arises over tax returns. We have always had the max withheld so that we would get back a bigger tax return which we then use to cover our property taxes. This year we got back a return of about $5,000 in February. I do not believe we're going to have to worry about at this point. I don't think even under the best of circumstances we can hope to get our attorney fees paid for in full before September and the money we received was all spent on the property taxes, living expenses and debt payments. After checking with the attorney that it wouldn't screw us up I went ahead and changed our federal deductions beginning at the end of July such that they are no longer taking out anything from our pay going forward. However, a lot of our return comes more from our mortgage interest and other deductions so I would suspect we may still get a decent size return for the 2009 tax year. We do own a home with a 2008 appraisal value of $200,000 and we live in an area not nearly as hard hit as others so I think the value is still there. When you deduct the first and second mortgages we have about $20k in equity that we need to protect. In NY both the husband and wife can take a homestead exemption of $50k (total $100,000). I'm however a little confused between what I'm reading and what I have understood from the attorney with regards to protecting the refund to be received in 2010 in combination with the rest of our personal property. Can anyone else make sense of this? http://www.legalconsumer.com/bankrup...henectady-Troy
Am I understanding correctly that one filer can take the homestead exemption plus up to $5,000 in personal property but then not be allowed any cash exemption. Alternatively the other can take $2500 in cash but then can't protect any personal property ($5,000 less personal property lesser of the two). In other words the only amount of cash that can be protected is $2500 and at the cost of any other personal property exemptions. This wouldn't surprise me cause NY sucks!
We really don't have any personal property to worry about we have a 95 Windstar and a 93 Taurus wagon. Together they're worth about $1,000. The only jewelry of any real value I own is my wedding bands. We have your general electronics but except for my daughter's laptop most are well aged and wouldn't be worth much. I guess my next concern would be the dog, two cats, two birds and two rats but believe me I highly doubt I could give them away LOL
I'm trying to work out timing of the filing as well. See in June I was able to get a 6 month hardship modification to our mortgage (after speaking to the attorney) which has lowered our payments by $300 until November. I would of course like to enjoy this savings as long as possible but it will definitely end at 6 months and they have no other programs available. My husband accidentally missed his largest credit card payment to Chase on May 1 which is really what got this ball rolling. Three days after the missed payment we called them and begged them to take the missed minimum and drop the other fees. They wouldn't make any concessions and the payment went from $168 to about $600 on the next statement thus the reason we didn't bother to pay. We paid all of our other credit cards during May and used a few to pay some of our bills, gas and food no more than $100 on any card. June 1 we stopped paying all of our cards and my husband used one card in early June for about $25 in gas. This puts us just at the 30 day mark in July on the cards and the one Chase card at 60 days in arrears. I've been answering the calls on and off and basically telling them we can't make payment now don't know when and since I am barely covering the necessary basics of living don't believe any of their programs can help. This has been my effort at trying to keep them from going off trying to reach us through our employers, family, neighbors etc. I've actually begun to have a little fun with it since I already know where its going.
Anyway that's our story. Any one have any input for me?
We started out by visiting CCS who basically told us to seek out an attorney and I was able to pry out a recommendation. From there we had a consultation with that attorney and really liked her right from the get go. I've since contacted her with additional questions via email and she was quick to get back to me and we had a good conversation by phone so we're feeling very good with her and plan to make our first payment toward retainer next week.
All in all she quoted a total cost including filing fee of $1300. When asked if we should have any need to prepare for any additional representation costs she said her fees would fully cover the bankruptcy filing and proceedings with additional fees becoming due only if she was forced to defend us against something brought to light during that we had neglected to disclose to her prior (I.e. Lying about the existence of an asset etc). We've got nothing to hide so I don't think this will be an issue.
I think we are a fairly straightforward chapter 7 to be filed in the Northern District of New York. One question that remains for me in figuring out our means test figures is whether we are a household of 3 or a household of 4 because my 20year old daughter is a full-time college student living most of the year in a dorm who we continue to claim on our tax return. The attorney seemed to dismiss our concern quickly indicating she could be included for the household size but said even without her we seemed to be able to come in under Median. By my calculations, I find the same to be true when looking at the regular salary income only but the margin without her is a little closer. This concerns me a bit with regards to timing our filing because in the last few months as we were getting a bit desperate to keep up with everything we took loans in April from our whole life insurance policies totaling $1600 and I cashed out a profit sharing plan in May amounting to about $800. If I understand what I have read here correctly these one time payment items would be included as "income" in the six month look back is this correct? If so, they would end up putting us a bit over median for a 3 person household but not even close for a 4 person household . Course when I go through the means test with a 3 person household we come out considerably negative so I guess it doesn't really matter but I would sure feel better if we didn't have to worry about going through the means test to get there. Out of curiosity if she were included in household size would we have to include her meager income as well though she does not contribute to the household and doesn't make enough to file her own return? Worse yet her student loans?
My next concern arises over tax returns. We have always had the max withheld so that we would get back a bigger tax return which we then use to cover our property taxes. This year we got back a return of about $5,000 in February. I do not believe we're going to have to worry about at this point. I don't think even under the best of circumstances we can hope to get our attorney fees paid for in full before September and the money we received was all spent on the property taxes, living expenses and debt payments. After checking with the attorney that it wouldn't screw us up I went ahead and changed our federal deductions beginning at the end of July such that they are no longer taking out anything from our pay going forward. However, a lot of our return comes more from our mortgage interest and other deductions so I would suspect we may still get a decent size return for the 2009 tax year. We do own a home with a 2008 appraisal value of $200,000 and we live in an area not nearly as hard hit as others so I think the value is still there. When you deduct the first and second mortgages we have about $20k in equity that we need to protect. In NY both the husband and wife can take a homestead exemption of $50k (total $100,000). I'm however a little confused between what I'm reading and what I have understood from the attorney with regards to protecting the refund to be received in 2010 in combination with the rest of our personal property. Can anyone else make sense of this? http://www.legalconsumer.com/bankrup...henectady-Troy
Am I understanding correctly that one filer can take the homestead exemption plus up to $5,000 in personal property but then not be allowed any cash exemption. Alternatively the other can take $2500 in cash but then can't protect any personal property ($5,000 less personal property lesser of the two). In other words the only amount of cash that can be protected is $2500 and at the cost of any other personal property exemptions. This wouldn't surprise me cause NY sucks!
We really don't have any personal property to worry about we have a 95 Windstar and a 93 Taurus wagon. Together they're worth about $1,000. The only jewelry of any real value I own is my wedding bands. We have your general electronics but except for my daughter's laptop most are well aged and wouldn't be worth much. I guess my next concern would be the dog, two cats, two birds and two rats but believe me I highly doubt I could give them away LOL
I'm trying to work out timing of the filing as well. See in June I was able to get a 6 month hardship modification to our mortgage (after speaking to the attorney) which has lowered our payments by $300 until November. I would of course like to enjoy this savings as long as possible but it will definitely end at 6 months and they have no other programs available. My husband accidentally missed his largest credit card payment to Chase on May 1 which is really what got this ball rolling. Three days after the missed payment we called them and begged them to take the missed minimum and drop the other fees. They wouldn't make any concessions and the payment went from $168 to about $600 on the next statement thus the reason we didn't bother to pay. We paid all of our other credit cards during May and used a few to pay some of our bills, gas and food no more than $100 on any card. June 1 we stopped paying all of our cards and my husband used one card in early June for about $25 in gas. This puts us just at the 30 day mark in July on the cards and the one Chase card at 60 days in arrears. I've been answering the calls on and off and basically telling them we can't make payment now don't know when and since I am barely covering the necessary basics of living don't believe any of their programs can help. This has been my effort at trying to keep them from going off trying to reach us through our employers, family, neighbors etc. I've actually begun to have a little fun with it since I already know where its going.
Anyway that's our story. Any one have any input for me?
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