gauranteed not to lose car or home in ch 7?

[goobs]

Hi all, i'm about 40k in CC debt but not late or delinquent in anything. Our house, car, and CC payments are all current. However, it has come to the point that nearly all of our paycheck goes to CCs and then we have to reuse the CC to purchase necessities and are in a vicious cycle we cant get out of. We will eventually reach limits soon and have been advised to file ch7 before things get worst.

Our main concern is our home and car. We dont want to lose either one and will not consider ch 7 if that's a possibility. I keep asking the attorney before i pay the retainer and he keeps saying not to worry, but can anyone give me feedback here? Can he be positive that we wont lose our home or car? We live in CA
thanks!

btw i owe 292k on a home valued at around 350k and 19k on a car that might be worth maybe 12k.

[debee]

You should be able to exempt at least 75K in home equity - more depending on your age, health and family unit. Since you're upside down on the car, there's no money in it for your creditors and no motive for the trustee to sell it on their behalf.

What might be an issue for you is the lender holding the note on your car. Credit unions, Ford Motor Credit (& others) are known to repo if you don't reaffirm the debt. In your case - being so far upside down - reaffirmation wouldn't be a good idea. If you have a repo lender, you might want to look into picking up a new car before you file (while you can still get good rates).

Most lenders go along with "ride through" which is the scenario where you keep the car so long as you maintain insurance and make your payments. You can usually find out what your lender's policy is by asking. If you want to remain anonymous, don't call from a number linked to your account.

There's a lot of outdated info out there when it comes to CA exemptions. You can read the most recent info at LadyInTheRed's blog: http://www.bkforum.com/entry.php?336...tcy-Exemptions

[goobs]

Thanks! Met with attorney today and confirmed everything you wrote. I was freaking out because I, in fact, was looking at outdated exemption numbers