Minnesota BK law

[laura2000]

Hello to anyone who can help me.

I am falling behind on 35,000 in CC debt. I filed chapter 7 in February of 2003 discharging 15,000 of CC debt racked up in my name... by my ex husband when we divorced. I just filed and got it over with.

I know i cannot file again until February of next year 2011.

This time most of it was used for living expenses while I could not work at times while my daughter was sick off and on for 4 years. It dose not matter how it got there, it just is.

I am coming up on being behind 2 months on several CC.

I am getting phone calls off the hook. 10-15 a per day. My daughter is getting them on her line as well. I have yet to answer.

I got married in July of last year but my husband is on none of my CC's. The home we live in is owned by him and he purchased it 9 years ago. We are both on the title to one car that is worth probly $1500. He ha another car in his name.

I own nothing else.

I am getting frightened... the stories of people being arrested for not paying their CC's.

Anyone have any idea what they can do to me between now and February 2011?

ETA: I make 22,000 a year. I am thinking my husband is free and clear a far as anyone coming after him or his house?

[angles]

You wont get arrested for debt so put that out of your mind.

The CC's will just call until they get to a point where they may decide to settle, sell your debt to a Collection Agency, or sue. Any one of those could take months or years or never happen. Some people answer their calls, some don’t. Since your husband purchased the house before marriage my guess is it will not be part of the BK but don’t take my advice, seek a competent experienced BK attorney. It sounds like you are on the road to filing so start planning and interview some attorneys.

[laura2000]

[tcreegan]

Courts as Debt Collectors

Hi Laura2000,

Here in Larimer County Colorado, the whole system is set up to benefit the collection agency. It is pretty sad to see. Sorry it has infected your court system too.

Just remember, all the people in the newspaper ignored an order from the court. Always read court correspondence and reply to it. Find out how to reschedule trials and allow "discovery" time.

Basically, you want to get court dates out to the BK filing time. Then they all fall underneath the automatic stay and be dismissed. Even if someone gets a judgement against you, it still gets discharged in the BK. Asking for "discovery" is basically asking the court to order the credit debt collector for a paper trail back to the original creditor, a signed contract and last statement from the original creditor. Lots of times parts of these have been lost and they will have to take time to dig documents out, put a package together, and get it to you. After they do that, pour over it for errors; missing account number; buying date on one page is before the selling date on the previous page, whatever. When you find an error, notify the court and the debt collector. They will move the court date back. Repeat as necessary.

As far as the phone calls, what worked best for me was telling them a sob-story and that there was nothing I could due before (a date about 2 months in the future). They would still try to weasel a small payment out of me, but I stuck to my sob story. ("that money has to go to my daughters doctor or she won't get her treatment") It would stay quiet until that day and then I would repeat the whole thing again. Since you never speak to the same person, this works pretty well.

The only thing that can happen to you is the court grants the cc/debt collector a judgement against you. This does nothing to you. It does allow them to try to seize your bank account (put everything in an account with only hubby's name on it) or garnish your wages (whole nother legal process to get that set up.) All this goes away in the bk.

Best of luck, I hope all this verbiage was helpful in some small way,

Tom in Colo

[laura2000]

I am hoping that I can keep them at Bay until February. Than I can file and be done with this whole entire mess. I truly thought when my child got healthy I would go back to my job full time and be able to take care of this debt. It has not worked out that way.

Hopefully it will be simple. I only own half of one car with 178,000 miles on it. Everything in our house my husband owned before we got married. I am not on the house as he bought it almost 10 years ago.

I am going to start talking to Lawyers soon.

[laura2000]

Well here I am again. I can't file until April 17th. I have a collector calling me at work. Last week a co worker of mine took a call from them and said I was not available. It was a few minutes after they had called and I hung up on them after telling them to stop calling me at work. Than left my desk to compose myself. They told her "how can she not be available I just talked with her? They said they would hold. When I came back to my desk she was holding still. I took the call and told her I cannot take personal phone calls at work and she needed to stop calling me. (I have told them this several times already) She said I just talked with your supervisor and she said you could (which she did not) than she said she was going to call HR at my work and tell them about me and she hung up.
It's going to be a long 2 1/2 months........
I spoke with a lawyer briefly 2 weeks ago just to ask a few questions about my husband. Since I am not an the house and our debt is clearly divided into his and mine. It will be no issue for me to file solely keeping him totally out of it.

[tcreegan]

Here you go Laura, send em a letter...tell them no more contact, include the citation below, certified mail ret.rec.requested

THE FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT
As amended by Pub. L. 109-351, §§ 801-02, 120 Stat. 1966 (2006)

§ 805. Communication in connection with debt collection

(c) CEASING COMMUNICATION. If a consumer notifies a debt collector in writing that the consumer refuses to pay a debt or that the consumer wishes the debt collector to cease further communication with the consumer, the debt collector shall not communicate further with the consumer with respect to such debt, except—
(1) to advise the consumer that the debt collector’s further efforts are being terminated;
(2) to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor may invoke specified remedies which are ordinarily invoked by such debt collector or creditor; or
(3) where applicable, to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy.
If such notice from the consumer is made by mail, notification shall be complete upon receipt.

And if they happen to call you at work in the meantime, have something like this written on a card to recite easily:

This call is in violation of the Fair Debt Collections Act, title 15 section 805 of the US Code and will be recorded for evidence. For the record state your full name, the address of the location from which this call is being made, the name of your immediate supervisor, and the name of the company for which you are employed.

I guarantee you will lose them at "state your full name"

Tom in Colo

[tcreegan]

...oh, and I forgot...if they won't give their full name, supervisors name, etc...you state, "For the record, you are refusing to give [name, etc], is this correct?"

[laura2000]

thank you

I read this not to long after you posted and I very much appreciated it. I am just now finally getting a proper thank you posted. I have a typed card and carry it with me of what to say if they call work again. No one has called since i posted this. What they said was pretty bad and completely illegal. That was the last call i have gotten.

thanks again.....I hope the letters work!