I am new here and I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. We currently have $38000 in credit card debt. The minimum payments on the cards is $800 per month which we are able to make approximately 1/3 of the time. The other months we are short by a few hundred dollars (husband's pay is 1/2 bonus and varies month to month). We are not behind at all as the months that we are short we just charge food, groceries, etc so we can make the minimum payments. This is making our balance steadily increase most months with no end in sight. The months that the balance does go down it's only by $300 or so. We have no savings and are unable to save for retirement which is scary as we are both in our 40's. I met with a bk attorney who thinks we are a good candidate for chap 7. We haven't lived in FL 2 years yet so we are able to use Federal exemptions which will protect our cars, house and personal property. My main question is about an investment that we have with our old company. We have a number of shares that we bought many years ago for $33000. These shares require permission from the company to be bought or sold. A former co-worker informed us that the company is not currently allowing any transactions but we have not verified. Our lawyer seemed to think this was not a problem as they are shares that are not publically traded so any value is speculative. His theory is that we'll say they are worth $20,000 (the amount that would be protected by exemptions) as the value is speculative. My questions are:
1. Will the trustee contact our old employer to verify? If we have something in writing would that be satisfactory?
2. What if they say that the fair market value is higher - ie.$60,000 but they wouldn't allow us to sell? Obviously, if we could sell for the amount of, or close to, the total of our debt that would be ideal. If we are unable to sell then we really need to file but we don't want to lose everything over shares that we can't liquidate...
3. Do you think that the creditors would challange our lawyer claiming their value as $20,000?
Any advice anyone has to offer would be very appreciated. This is a pretty scary time and we want to do the right thing!
Thanks!
1. Will the trustee contact our old employer to verify? If we have something in writing would that be satisfactory?
2. What if they say that the fair market value is higher - ie.$60,000 but they wouldn't allow us to sell? Obviously, if we could sell for the amount of, or close to, the total of our debt that would be ideal. If we are unable to sell then we really need to file but we don't want to lose everything over shares that we can't liquidate...
3. Do you think that the creditors would challange our lawyer claiming their value as $20,000?
Any advice anyone has to offer would be very appreciated. This is a pretty scary time and we want to do the right thing!
Thanks!