Ok, I think I have a decent understanding of everything now but have some questions. We are about to file and want to figure out a couple more things first. Just don't want to get caught offguard or make any mistakes that could cost us the difference between a chapter 7 or 13 or none.
-Although we qualify for chapter 7 via the means test will the fact that our house payment is $1000 more than the standard allowed mortgage/rent cause any problems with being able to keep our house? We are about $30,000 a year over the median income but still qualify using the means test for Chapter 7 and this is using the allowed mortgage/rent amount not our actual mortgage amount. This house is our dream house and although it would be tight we can just afford it once we get rid of our credit card debt.
-Have we waited long enough? It's been over a year since our last major credit card transaction. We bought a foreclosure and used credit card cash advances to fix the place up. We had about $40,000 in credit card debt before we bought the house and have about $90,000 now. Please don't give us a hard time we know we got carried away but what's done is done. We charged up 2 store credit cards buying materials and supplies to fix up the house at total of about $15,000 the other $35000 or so was in cash advances. There was also one balance transfer that we did to move about $10.000 from one card to a new card trying to keep expenses down. We then recharged up the old card which was factored in above.
-Was "not using" our bank accounts a good or bad thing? Right around a year ago I was worried we wouldn't be able to pay some of our debts and was worried about anyone pulling money out of our accounts so we stopped direct deposit and stopped using our bank accounts. I cash all of our checks but never deposit any. We've somehow managed to scrape by for the past year without any late payments but we are out of money now. Most of the accounts are still open, just not used. I did occasionally put a few bucks in the accounts to cover monthly fees and the occasional check but that's it.
-Could timing our filing based on past 6 months income backfire in anyway? I am employed full time and have a side business with varying income. Some months are nothing and some months are good. We are trying to time our filing to have the least amount of income in the past 6 months which should be about now.
-I will be making some more money next month from my business, will that hurt us? As part of my normal part time business I will be getting a lump some of money next month. My business is made up of about 6-8 checks a year totaling about 30-40k. How will that affect our bankruptcy?
That's what I can think of for now. Thanks in advance for your help!
-Although we qualify for chapter 7 via the means test will the fact that our house payment is $1000 more than the standard allowed mortgage/rent cause any problems with being able to keep our house? We are about $30,000 a year over the median income but still qualify using the means test for Chapter 7 and this is using the allowed mortgage/rent amount not our actual mortgage amount. This house is our dream house and although it would be tight we can just afford it once we get rid of our credit card debt.
-Have we waited long enough? It's been over a year since our last major credit card transaction. We bought a foreclosure and used credit card cash advances to fix the place up. We had about $40,000 in credit card debt before we bought the house and have about $90,000 now. Please don't give us a hard time we know we got carried away but what's done is done. We charged up 2 store credit cards buying materials and supplies to fix up the house at total of about $15,000 the other $35000 or so was in cash advances. There was also one balance transfer that we did to move about $10.000 from one card to a new card trying to keep expenses down. We then recharged up the old card which was factored in above.
-Was "not using" our bank accounts a good or bad thing? Right around a year ago I was worried we wouldn't be able to pay some of our debts and was worried about anyone pulling money out of our accounts so we stopped direct deposit and stopped using our bank accounts. I cash all of our checks but never deposit any. We've somehow managed to scrape by for the past year without any late payments but we are out of money now. Most of the accounts are still open, just not used. I did occasionally put a few bucks in the accounts to cover monthly fees and the occasional check but that's it.
-Could timing our filing based on past 6 months income backfire in anyway? I am employed full time and have a side business with varying income. Some months are nothing and some months are good. We are trying to time our filing to have the least amount of income in the past 6 months which should be about now.
-I will be making some more money next month from my business, will that hurt us? As part of my normal part time business I will be getting a lump some of money next month. My business is made up of about 6-8 checks a year totaling about 30-40k. How will that affect our bankruptcy?
That's what I can think of for now. Thanks in advance for your help!
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