Okay so I have actually been a member here for sometime and I did post way back when this journey began but then it was a waiting game for us. Trying to get the money together while trying to keep the household afloat in rough waters without credit cards.
Anyway we finally met with the lawyer on Thursday. We did not leave her office until after 5:30 pm so I am guessing the actual file date would be Friday morning. Now I am worried because of a small glitch. I got paid on Tuesday, I did not cash or deposit my paycheck. Friday morning our total bank balance was $180 with $20 cash on hand. My lawyer was aware that it was our plan to use my latest paycheck to get a cashiers check to pay off one of my husband's 401k loans in the amount of $1,015 so that we could take out a new 401k loan just after filing which will be used to bring our mortgage back to a completely current state (will be just 30 days late for the first time w/ new payment due on November 16), pay our school taxes, utilities and repair our two vehicles both of which failed inspection at the end of October.
My husband took my check to the bank on Friday afternoon asked them to cash it outright and give him a cashier's check made out to the 401k company. He did not realize that the girl in turn ran the transactions through our account. Our statement for the day of filing now shows the beginning balance of $95 plus a deposit of 1111.11 minus the cashier check and cash withdrawl amount of 1111.11. He then sent the check out overnight mail to the 401k company so that loan will come up as a zero balance as of Monday enabling us to take the new loan. I did provide my lawyer with a printout from my online account as of 11/5 which is the same date that is on all of the signed pages of our paper petition.
I guess I'm just worried what might happen now that the bank account will show these transactions on the day of filing.
A little background, we are below median by a small amount as a household of 3 but the lawyers said we could include my daughter making us a household of 4 even though she is a full time college student living on campus because this is still her legal residence and she still lives here when not attending school. So no presumption arises.
We are in NY and have a house that has somewhere between $10k and $60k worth of equity. We had an independent appraisal in September '08 that set the house at $190k, our tax assessed value is $220k as per a new market value assessment done by the county in May '08 but sites such as zillow are now listing us at like $246k however the house needs more TLC than I think these sites take into account. In any event it was listed on our petition for the $190k. We currently owe about $179k. NY allows for a $50k homestead exemption by both the husband and the wife. As long as the value is not adjusted above $228k only one of us needs to use our homestead exemption to cover the equity. If I understand correctly this would allow the other of us to exempt up to $2,500 in cash in lieu of the homestead.
Other than the home we have nothing of value to speak of. Our cars while we could only exempt one of them both together aren't even worth the whole amount we would be able to exempt for one vehicle. Neither is worth more than about $1k.
I am guessing that the worst possible thing that could happen is that the trustee makes an issue of the transaction that occurred on filing date and wants the $1k back. We do have it going for us I suppose that this money was part of our usual income nothing extra and that we should be able to use my homestead exemption to exempt it. I'm just hoping that the lawyer doesn't now advise us to hold off on taking out the new 401k loan as it is the means by which we will bring our mortgage current immediately so we can get the fresh start this bankruptcy was meant to provide. We of course expect to speak with our attorney about all this on Monday.
I am simply putting this out there as I would love to have input from any of you because I really had learned so much from this forum even if we did manage to screw things up just the same LOL. I also just needed to get it all off my chest.
Anyway we finally met with the lawyer on Thursday. We did not leave her office until after 5:30 pm so I am guessing the actual file date would be Friday morning. Now I am worried because of a small glitch. I got paid on Tuesday, I did not cash or deposit my paycheck. Friday morning our total bank balance was $180 with $20 cash on hand. My lawyer was aware that it was our plan to use my latest paycheck to get a cashiers check to pay off one of my husband's 401k loans in the amount of $1,015 so that we could take out a new 401k loan just after filing which will be used to bring our mortgage back to a completely current state (will be just 30 days late for the first time w/ new payment due on November 16), pay our school taxes, utilities and repair our two vehicles both of which failed inspection at the end of October.
My husband took my check to the bank on Friday afternoon asked them to cash it outright and give him a cashier's check made out to the 401k company. He did not realize that the girl in turn ran the transactions through our account. Our statement for the day of filing now shows the beginning balance of $95 plus a deposit of 1111.11 minus the cashier check and cash withdrawl amount of 1111.11. He then sent the check out overnight mail to the 401k company so that loan will come up as a zero balance as of Monday enabling us to take the new loan. I did provide my lawyer with a printout from my online account as of 11/5 which is the same date that is on all of the signed pages of our paper petition.
I guess I'm just worried what might happen now that the bank account will show these transactions on the day of filing.
A little background, we are below median by a small amount as a household of 3 but the lawyers said we could include my daughter making us a household of 4 even though she is a full time college student living on campus because this is still her legal residence and she still lives here when not attending school. So no presumption arises.
We are in NY and have a house that has somewhere between $10k and $60k worth of equity. We had an independent appraisal in September '08 that set the house at $190k, our tax assessed value is $220k as per a new market value assessment done by the county in May '08 but sites such as zillow are now listing us at like $246k however the house needs more TLC than I think these sites take into account. In any event it was listed on our petition for the $190k. We currently owe about $179k. NY allows for a $50k homestead exemption by both the husband and the wife. As long as the value is not adjusted above $228k only one of us needs to use our homestead exemption to cover the equity. If I understand correctly this would allow the other of us to exempt up to $2,500 in cash in lieu of the homestead.
Other than the home we have nothing of value to speak of. Our cars while we could only exempt one of them both together aren't even worth the whole amount we would be able to exempt for one vehicle. Neither is worth more than about $1k.
I am guessing that the worst possible thing that could happen is that the trustee makes an issue of the transaction that occurred on filing date and wants the $1k back. We do have it going for us I suppose that this money was part of our usual income nothing extra and that we should be able to use my homestead exemption to exempt it. I'm just hoping that the lawyer doesn't now advise us to hold off on taking out the new 401k loan as it is the means by which we will bring our mortgage current immediately so we can get the fresh start this bankruptcy was meant to provide. We of course expect to speak with our attorney about all this on Monday.
I am simply putting this out there as I would love to have input from any of you because I really had learned so much from this forum even if we did manage to screw things up just the same LOL. I also just needed to get it all off my chest.
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