Back from the Attorney

[KAKRN97]

We went to see a local attorney today. He seemed to think my case would be cut and dry. With a household of 4, we currently pass the means test. DH will not be filing. Just me. I have about 85K in unsecured credit card debt. DH just went back to work two weeks ago so I need to get things ready quickly before his income would put us over the median. I'm hoping to have everything ready for this in the next two week. We have DH"s truck which is paid off but is worth more than the exemption and then the camper which we still owe on..not sure how the camper is going to be handled because we'd like to keep it.

Apparently this is the crux of his practice. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Told me to stop paying my credit card bills. Plus I have to come up with money to pay for my car repair. The transmission blew and it's gonna cost $2500 to replace/repair.
We paid him the $100 retainer fee and total this will cost $1799 with $1299 due before he will file.

I never thought I'd have to do this but I gotta think of the future and get a fresh start before it's too late.

[BCA2009]

We went to see a local attorney today. He seemed to think my case would be cut and dry. With a household of 4, we currently pass the means test. DH will not be filing. Just me. I have about 85K in unsecured credit card debt. DH just went back to work two weeks ago so I need to get things ready quickly before his income would put us over the median. I'm hoping to have everything ready for this in the next two week. We have DH"s truck which is paid off but is worth more than the exemption and then the camper which we still owe on..not sure how the camper is going to be handled because we'd like to keep it.

Apparently this is the crux of his practice. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Told me to stop paying my credit card bills. Plus I have to come up with money to pay for my car repair. The transmission blew and it's gonna cost $2500 to replace/repair.
We paid him the $100 retainer fee and total this will cost $1799 with $1299 due before he will file.

I never thought I'd have to do this but I gotta think of the future and get a fresh start before it's too late.

Sounds like you have your ducks in a row. You probably need to be prepared to give up the camper. For one thing, if you tell the trustee you can afford to continue making payments on it, that would be money that could be used to fund a chap 13 instead. I would never say that I could afford a luxury item going into BK.

But on a more practical side, why would you want to go thru BK and come out with a note on something you don't need. Save up after BK and buy a used one that will be paid for. If your truck is not totally exempt you are going to have to buy back the equity in that, which may put a strain on your post BK financies for a while.

If you do decide you just have to keep the camper, I would incate in the paperwork that I was going to surrender, then keep making payments and hope for a ride thru. The loan company might not allow it in the end, but you wouldn't jepordize you chap 7, by telling th trustee you have extra money to pay for a luxury item.

Good Luck!

[KAKRN97]

Sounds like you have your ducks in a row. You probably need to be prepared to give up the camper. For one thing, if you tell the trustee you can afford to continue making payments on it, that would be money that could be used to fund a chap 13 instead. I would never say that I could afford a luxury item going into BK.

But on a more practical side, why would you want to go thru BK and come out with a note on something you don't need. Save up after BK and buy a used one that will be paid for. If your truck is not totally exempt you are going to have to buy back the equity in that, which may put a strain on your post BK financies for a while.

If you do decide you just have to keep the camper, I would incate in the paperwork that I was going to surrender, then keep making payments and hope for a ride thru. The loan company might not allow it in the end, but you wouldn't jepordize you chap 7, by telling th trustee you have extra money to pay for a luxury item.

Good Luck!

Dh has been the one to make the payments on the camper. Since my name is on both the loan and the titlework(which the bank has) I have to include it in my BK..same with DH's truck, that too is paid off(along with my car) and won't be totally exempt since it's worth more than the standard exemption and again I have to include that because my name is also on the title.

The lawyer told us to have my DH take the money out of his IRA(close to 9K) to buy back the equity in his truck because DH and I work different shifts and therefore we need to have 2 vehicles. I work 3rd shift and am not home when DH needs to leave for work. Plus I work in a town 30 miles away from our home. DH JUST went back to work after being laid off for 15 months.

We still owe on the camper. About 5k..if we were to trade it in, we'd get about what we owe on it. The lawyer said something about getting the dealer we bought it from to give us a statement saying what the trade in value is for the camper. It's a 2006 20ft travel trailer that we bought in 2008 when we traded in our 2007 Jayco pop-up. I'd actually like a bigger one.....someday...