When to stop paying

[feemama]

My mom will be filing Ch 7 in January 2011. When would it be safe to stop paying her credit cards which include; Capital One, and HSBC. She doesn't want to run the risk of garnishment ( but she is on unemployment anyway, so not sure if that is even possible)...All thoughts and ideas are greatly appreciated....Thanks

[AlmostAmos]

I would wait until she is inside of 6 months. It is much easier to come up with reasons to string them along if you only have to do it for 6 months or less. Of course, if she tells them she is unemployed - I seriously doubt they will sue.

-AA

[keepinitreal]

Now's the perfect time for your mom to make appointments for free consultations with bankruptcy attorneys. They can answer this and other questions, and give her advice such as whether or not to move her checking/savings account to another bank now, cancel auto-payments, move auto-deposits, etc.

[cashstrapped]

Currently researching

I am also currently researching bankruptcy and the process that I need to follow to begin. I have found a couple books that I will be looking through tomorrow. I will also be calling a few attorneys in the area to try and line up some free consultations. I am 3 months behind on my mortgage but I am current on every other bill. Should I stop paying them now or should I continue to pay while I research and understand the process I need to go through?

Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[catleg]

Once you decide to stop paying any one credit card, you should stop paying them all. It's an all-or-nothing deal.

Put the money you save toward necessities like medical care, dental care, and also paying off student loans.

I have a hard time understanding not paying on a mortgage but still paying credit cards, but I guess it's the new normal. But really the unpaid mortgage payments should be saved for future rent.

Supposedly BofA is going to start doing a lot more foreclosures this year.

[cashstrapped]

Catleg,
I agree with your comment. It should be all or nothing however I didn't plan on filing bankruptcy. I decided on foreclosure because out family needed a bigger place and we were not able to sell our current one. Now that I have done that I have started looking at the numbers and decided we would benefit from bankruptcy as well so that is now the next step.

So are you saying I should just quit paying everything now?

[feelingnutsy]

Hey---Catleg---have you heard/read that other banks will be doing the same?

[ssmdem]

We're planning on filing in November/December. I'm going to quit paying in July - #1 reason being I want to pay for 90 days past my last purchase - I hear that's not necessary, but I'm making sure no creditor has room to complain - #2 reason, I want to deal with the phone calls as little as possible. My attorney has said I can refer them to him even if we haven't filed yet as long as he has his retainer. By that time, I will have saved up the money to pay him, so hopefully can just refer the callers on over to him and not deal with it at all.

[ssmdem]

I actually will quit paying my mortgage a couple of months before I quit paying the credit cards honestly out of necessity. I just can't afford the mortgage anymore - lost my job and have taken a smaller paying one, and have received my last good paycheck, so the money for the mortgage just isn't there anymore. We're going to attempt to try for a modification, but honestly, I don't think they are going to be able to get the payments down to where I need them, but at least it will stall the foreclosure process a little bit, then filing will stall it a little bit longer, and after then, we'll just cross our fingers the courts take their sweet time before we have to get out. The longer we can stay, the more money I can get saved up.

[cashstrapped]

Thanks ssmdm

Thanks for your posts. that info helped a lot. How much will you have to pay to file bankruptcy and what state are you in?