I Need Help

[jmhle1]

My father and i own a house as joint tenants in Maine. We are both on the mortgage. We both own separate homes in Massachusetts that we live in. My Massachusets home has no equity in it. My income is below the massachusetts mean income. The Maine house has 20k equity. The Maine house is rented for $200 less than mortgage payment. I am one month behind on the mortgage payment for my Massachusetts home but i do plan to make next months payment. The Maine house mortgage is up to date. I have zero disposable income and have not paid credit cards in two months. I have 40k balance on credit cards. Can anybody recommend which type of bankruptcy I should file? Will i lose the rental property in Maine? Also, I owe my father 13k and was wondering if that would be taken into consideration as a debt i need to repay by the bankruptcy court.

[tcreegan]

Hi jmhle,

Sounds like a Ch 7 to me...

The project seems to be not losing the Maine house...which is not your residence (otherwise known as the "homestead")

Normally, not primary residence = no homestead exemption = can't keep it out of the BK

BUT...MA allows for both state and federal exemption rules. With no equity in your MA house, you don't need any homestead exemption there. Federal rules allow you to use any unused homestead exemption as a "wildcard" which could exempt your interest in the Maine house.

The wildcard covers just over 10K ...which happens to be your share of the 20K Maine house equity.

Looks good on the surface, but there are a lot of "ifs, buts, whens, and hows" ...so you need to find a good BK attorney.

You also need to BK attorney to figure out what can be done with the 13K you owe Dad, would it help you, would it help him, is it legal, etc.

Welcome aboard, lots of good people here to help you out! Keep us posted on how things turn out.

Tom in Colo