I've been reading this board for about a week, and you are all great. I've learned so much, but I want to tell you about our particular situation and hear your comments. Even though I know we're going to file in a few months, we're very worried about it.
We (husband and wife) have a large amount of unsecured debt, about 350k or so. We've been in business since 1993 and always used credit to finance projects. We'd finance stuff, live on credit, sell, then pay stuff off, then repeat. I think it's because of this continuous use of credit that we had so much credit. A little more than three years ago, we had a daughter (our first, but we're not young) with health issues. At the time, we had a substantial amount of debt, so our big plan was to sell a piece of property that we were hanging on to so we could pay everything off and still have enough to live off for a few months (we wanted to spend time with our new daughter and educate ourselves about dealing with her issues).
The property didn't sell for more than three years. We just sold it in Oct, 2009, for about one-third of the original asking price, which, after paying what was owed on it, is enough to get us through the winter. And after paying on all that debt and still using more credit to (stupidly) make payments and with banks raising rates, we ended up where we are now.
We stopped using credit and paying the credit cards/loan lines around the end of Sept, 2009. I guess I'm just so paranoid that because there's SO much debt that there's going to be a problem getting through this. We should have no problem passing the means test for a ch 7, but will they scrutinize us more because of the amount of debt? We shouldn't be an asset case and are hoping to file in May with a little cash in the bank. Once summer is here we'll be busy and will be able to get our "fresh start". We've talked to an attorney (free session) and he didn't seem concerned with what we told him about in our alloted time. But I'm concerned...comments? Are there others out there who've had this much debt?
We (husband and wife) have a large amount of unsecured debt, about 350k or so. We've been in business since 1993 and always used credit to finance projects. We'd finance stuff, live on credit, sell, then pay stuff off, then repeat. I think it's because of this continuous use of credit that we had so much credit. A little more than three years ago, we had a daughter (our first, but we're not young) with health issues. At the time, we had a substantial amount of debt, so our big plan was to sell a piece of property that we were hanging on to so we could pay everything off and still have enough to live off for a few months (we wanted to spend time with our new daughter and educate ourselves about dealing with her issues).
The property didn't sell for more than three years. We just sold it in Oct, 2009, for about one-third of the original asking price, which, after paying what was owed on it, is enough to get us through the winter. And after paying on all that debt and still using more credit to (stupidly) make payments and with banks raising rates, we ended up where we are now.
We stopped using credit and paying the credit cards/loan lines around the end of Sept, 2009. I guess I'm just so paranoid that because there's SO much debt that there's going to be a problem getting through this. We should have no problem passing the means test for a ch 7, but will they scrutinize us more because of the amount of debt? We shouldn't be an asset case and are hoping to file in May with a little cash in the bank. Once summer is here we'll be busy and will be able to get our "fresh start". We've talked to an attorney (free session) and he didn't seem concerned with what we told him about in our alloted time. But I'm concerned...comments? Are there others out there who've had this much debt?
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