Hello all. I never thought I would be a participant in a forum like this, but if things don't change within the next 6 months, I may be forced to be a legal participant in Chapter 7. And as I am a very prudent and wise man, I need to plan for whatever may happen.
First some background information. I have *multiple* technical degrees (i.e., engineering, computer science), and as recently as 2003, have been making a good living being a temporary contractor as a software engineer, earning about $1/minute for my time (which for a regular gig with a little overtime would easily be over $10K/month.) Anyway, I got totally flooded out by Hurricane Katrina, and sold my home to the state of Louisiana for a nice, big profit (although I am obliged to buy a replacement home in Louisiana) and insurance. However, I have not been able to find any decent work since early 2005 (I had enough in the bank in 2003 & 2004 that I took a "sabbatical"), with of course, the Hurricane being a big distraction in 2006.
But enough about what happened then. The fact is that my situation now is that I have about $120K in unsecured debt at various interest rates (with the hardship programs going around, they are most at 6%, but some are at 9 or 11%), my 130K mile car has just been paid off, I am officially still homeless from the Hurricane, but do own a homesite worth about $40K or so, and have $35K in the stock market (I have lost some there, obviously.) I do have, even with the stock market down, about $150K in retirement.
Because of the hurricane, I have the opportunity to get a home loan at the sweetheart rate of 2.7%. Of course, to do this, I need to show income, which I have not been able to do so far. I have calculated that I need to have an income of about $40/hr to swing the total debt (of which the unsecured debt is about $2500/mo, and the house note would be about $1200/mo.) So basically, if I did have an income of less than $40/hr, I would not have enough to buy the home. And my feeling now is that if I cannot buy a home now, I could care less about buying a home in the USA for quite some time (I would have no problem living off of my retirement living in some cheap place in Eastern Europe like Ukraine or Russia, which I have visited extensively in the past and like very much!)
My plan is to continue to look for such a job, and try to tweak my skill set to get such a job. However, I get the sinking suspicion that the USA economy, with it's very tolerant attitude towards foreigners coming in and busting the wages (in my case, the damn H1B and L1 workers form Hindustan), just makes a middle aged professional such as myself as no more than surplus labor. If the stock market were to stay flat, with my living expenses and debt service at $3500/mo, I will run out of cash sometime in the late Spring 2010.
Now if I were to stop servicing my unsecured debt, I can kiss that low interest 2.7% rate home loan goodbye, so I am forced to continue to service it, so long as I want to be able to buy my replacement home. But I can't just come up with the money. I need a proper job. And I cannot put off getting this loan forever (i.e., by taking a lower paying job for a while) as the time frame to take advantage of the low interest rate will not last for much longer. So my attitude is that I will either be able to swing this loan and get the house (after which time, I probably could consider not servicing the unsecured debt), or just go out in a bang and give the big middle finger to all my creditors and basically say goodbye to living in the USA.
Now, concerning the settlement I got for my destroyed house, technically, if I do not have a home in the state of Louisiana at the time of 3 years past the settlement date (which would be October 2011), I would need to pay back about $90K. I am not sure about the legality of that settlement, but at least, I think, by buying a homesite with part of that settlement, I at least showed that I was *trying* to resettle (a condition of the settlement), and in any case, I would think that so long as I could show that my financial condition deteriorated by forces beyond my control (i.e., unemployment), that I could not considered as being guilty of fraud.
It may turn out that I could parlay the homesite by selling it, and then buying a really beat up, cheap home somewhere in the sticks with the $40K or so, which would satisify the requirements for the settlement. However, unfortunately Louisiana only has a $25K bankruptcy homestead exemption, so it seems that even if I were to buy a home (if it would cost more than $25K, I would still lose it.) Sure, I could buy a home in Texas or Florida (or perhaps elsewhere), but then I would owe Louisiana for not buying a home in Louisiana. It's like I damned if I do, dammned if I don't.
Obviously, I need to talk to the folks in Louisiana about the *exact* legal repercussions. Perhaps I could even get a friend or family member to extend to me a small mortgage that would keep the legal equity at below $25K, which would allow me to keep my home in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and at least I would have someplace to sleep at night, and store all the stuff that I recovered from teh upstairs of my destroyed home (which is costing me about $200/mo to store.)
Anyway, I don't know the steps I should take. I am so far underwater that the only thing that can keep me afloat is that $40/hr job, that just seems to be impossible in this economy (even though for many years, $60/hr was my regular rate.) I have no family responsibilities, and my cancer has been in remission for quite some time (although our current governor, Bobby Jindal, is a standard Republican jackass, our state does have a fairly decent health care system for the indigent - thank you Huey Long!)
Any words of advice would be appreciated! Or a job paying $40/hr! :-)
First some background information. I have *multiple* technical degrees (i.e., engineering, computer science), and as recently as 2003, have been making a good living being a temporary contractor as a software engineer, earning about $1/minute for my time (which for a regular gig with a little overtime would easily be over $10K/month.) Anyway, I got totally flooded out by Hurricane Katrina, and sold my home to the state of Louisiana for a nice, big profit (although I am obliged to buy a replacement home in Louisiana) and insurance. However, I have not been able to find any decent work since early 2005 (I had enough in the bank in 2003 & 2004 that I took a "sabbatical"), with of course, the Hurricane being a big distraction in 2006.
But enough about what happened then. The fact is that my situation now is that I have about $120K in unsecured debt at various interest rates (with the hardship programs going around, they are most at 6%, but some are at 9 or 11%), my 130K mile car has just been paid off, I am officially still homeless from the Hurricane, but do own a homesite worth about $40K or so, and have $35K in the stock market (I have lost some there, obviously.) I do have, even with the stock market down, about $150K in retirement.
Because of the hurricane, I have the opportunity to get a home loan at the sweetheart rate of 2.7%. Of course, to do this, I need to show income, which I have not been able to do so far. I have calculated that I need to have an income of about $40/hr to swing the total debt (of which the unsecured debt is about $2500/mo, and the house note would be about $1200/mo.) So basically, if I did have an income of less than $40/hr, I would not have enough to buy the home. And my feeling now is that if I cannot buy a home now, I could care less about buying a home in the USA for quite some time (I would have no problem living off of my retirement living in some cheap place in Eastern Europe like Ukraine or Russia, which I have visited extensively in the past and like very much!)
My plan is to continue to look for such a job, and try to tweak my skill set to get such a job. However, I get the sinking suspicion that the USA economy, with it's very tolerant attitude towards foreigners coming in and busting the wages (in my case, the damn H1B and L1 workers form Hindustan), just makes a middle aged professional such as myself as no more than surplus labor. If the stock market were to stay flat, with my living expenses and debt service at $3500/mo, I will run out of cash sometime in the late Spring 2010.
Now if I were to stop servicing my unsecured debt, I can kiss that low interest 2.7% rate home loan goodbye, so I am forced to continue to service it, so long as I want to be able to buy my replacement home. But I can't just come up with the money. I need a proper job. And I cannot put off getting this loan forever (i.e., by taking a lower paying job for a while) as the time frame to take advantage of the low interest rate will not last for much longer. So my attitude is that I will either be able to swing this loan and get the house (after which time, I probably could consider not servicing the unsecured debt), or just go out in a bang and give the big middle finger to all my creditors and basically say goodbye to living in the USA.
Now, concerning the settlement I got for my destroyed house, technically, if I do not have a home in the state of Louisiana at the time of 3 years past the settlement date (which would be October 2011), I would need to pay back about $90K. I am not sure about the legality of that settlement, but at least, I think, by buying a homesite with part of that settlement, I at least showed that I was *trying* to resettle (a condition of the settlement), and in any case, I would think that so long as I could show that my financial condition deteriorated by forces beyond my control (i.e., unemployment), that I could not considered as being guilty of fraud.
It may turn out that I could parlay the homesite by selling it, and then buying a really beat up, cheap home somewhere in the sticks with the $40K or so, which would satisify the requirements for the settlement. However, unfortunately Louisiana only has a $25K bankruptcy homestead exemption, so it seems that even if I were to buy a home (if it would cost more than $25K, I would still lose it.) Sure, I could buy a home in Texas or Florida (or perhaps elsewhere), but then I would owe Louisiana for not buying a home in Louisiana. It's like I damned if I do, dammned if I don't.
Obviously, I need to talk to the folks in Louisiana about the *exact* legal repercussions. Perhaps I could even get a friend or family member to extend to me a small mortgage that would keep the legal equity at below $25K, which would allow me to keep my home in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and at least I would have someplace to sleep at night, and store all the stuff that I recovered from teh upstairs of my destroyed home (which is costing me about $200/mo to store.)
Anyway, I don't know the steps I should take. I am so far underwater that the only thing that can keep me afloat is that $40/hr job, that just seems to be impossible in this economy (even though for many years, $60/hr was my regular rate.) I have no family responsibilities, and my cancer has been in remission for quite some time (although our current governor, Bobby Jindal, is a standard Republican jackass, our state does have a fairly decent health care system for the indigent - thank you Huey Long!)
Any words of advice would be appreciated! Or a job paying $40/hr! :-)
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