A few questions please help

[chrissy92972]

We are waiting on the title for my husbands car to be sent back from Pendot and the appraisal from our house to be sent to us, if was done on Wednesday and then we will be meeting with our attorney to file. I am assuming it will be ch 7 since income is under 50,000 for a family of 6. We live in PA. We have about 50000 in credit card debts from medical bills etc. We owe about 87000 on 1st mortgage and 48000 on 2nd mortgage.

Husbands car is worth about 1000 at most and my car is leased and we want to keep it and keep paying on it.

My questions are if we file and keep the house and keep paying on it, do we get to keep our federal and state income tax refunds? We always use our refunds to pay our homeowners taxes and insurance. If we don't get to keep our refunds then we definately cannot keep the house and will have to include it. If we give up the house can we take our furniture, appliances, etc or do we need to leave them?

Also is there any chance of having student loan debt from Sallie Mae included. The loan has been interest only payments since 1998 when husband graduated from college, we still owe 28000 on it.

Next question what happens if I have two debit cards in my name from our local PTA because I am an officer.

Finally I am an authorized user on my parents visa and this is not part of the bankruptcy should I have my mom take my name off now, later, or never.



Thanks!

[tcreegan]

questions

Hello chrissy92972,

First off, thank goodness PA allows federal exemptions b/c the state exemptions are really bottom-of-the-barrel......

My questions are if we file and keep the house and keep paying on it, do we get to keep our federal and state income tax refunds?
These sort of do and sort of don't have anything to do with each other....your tax refund is a cash asset, keep the house or not. But...you can protect it with unused homestead exemption. The missing piece to the puzzle is how much equity do you have in the home? W/ federal exemptions you can protect ~20K of home equity, anything under that can be used as a "wildcard" to protect...whatever, including cash assets up to ~10K (anybody know if the federal homestead/wildcard gets doubled in a joint case?)

If we give up the house can we take our furniture, appliances, etc or do we need to leave them?
Furniture and personal property go with you. Appliances that are "attached" stay, the others get unplugged and go with you.

Also is there any chance of having student loan debt from Sallie Mae included.
You include it on your list of creditors, but it is not going anywhere. Student loans are not discharged in a BK

Next question what happens if I have two debit cards in my name from our local PTA because I am an officer.
Depends, generally you can't keep credit cards in a BK, the issuer cancels them right after the BK is filed. But a debit card from a local bank..probably nothing happens. At least that was our experience.

Finally I am an authorized user on my parents visa and this is not part of the bankruptcy should I have my mom take my name off now, later, or never.
If your name is on it, it is part of the BK. Have your Mom take you off before you file.

Hope this helps,

Tom in Colo

[chrissy92972]

thank you...I am guessing no equity in the house but still waiting on the appraisal. We paid 122, 450 for it 7 years ago and we owe about 140,000 on it.

[tcreegan]

Hi chrissy9272,

The 'good' news is that with less than 10K home equity, you have the full 10K+ wildcard to protect your tax refunds and other cash assets/property/whatever

The next big question is 'can we afford to pay on the house, 1st & 2nd, and still have enough $$ for adequate living inc. a savings plan?' I've seen a lot of folks on the forum post about trying to keep a house, getting further and further behind financially and finally letting the house go; regretting the $$ wasted on mortgage payments. A good plan is to find some impartial financial advice and since you have to take a credit counseling course before you file for BK, take the course and go over your financial situation with the counselor. Go to the website of your BK court, they will have a list of approved counseling providers.

Good luck with all this!

Tom in Colo