We stopped paying all 5 of our credit cards in Feb 2009. Four of those cards were CHASE, one was MBNA. I have NOT received any paperwork from them for a summons to appear. The credit card companies tried talking to me for about 3 months. I sent them do not call letters and that stopped for a while. But then the collectors got ahold of the debt and they started calling. Those calls are a little more tricky and I have received paperwork from them asking me to accept or dispute the debt and that if they hear nothing from me in 30 days, they will assume that it is my debt. So, I dispute the debt and I haven't heard anything again. I have one collector that went above and beyond unfair collections and we are actually going after them (at my attorneys' suggestion)--I'm not sure how far I will let that one go. To date, we owe about 120K in credit card debt. We meet with a bankruptcy attorney next week to determine what our options are. I wish I knew if we will qualify. On paper, we make very little. I'm self employed also so it's hard to garnish my wages I would guess?
On the flip side...we have a rental business. At the beginning of this year, we owned 7 houses. In September, we gave one back that we purchased on contract. We lost 10K in that deal--but relieved that the headache is gone. We signed papers on another property that we sold to the tenant, yesterday. We didn't make a dime on it. In fact, we convinced the previous owners (that gave us a 20% seller carryback), to take less money in an effort to get the place sold. IN reality, we are selling for less then we paid because that's just the market value right now. We are working on selling 2 more houses to the tenants and another has been on the market for over a year with no offers. Tough break, but we are doing what we can to get out of the mess that got us here.
I'm sure that will screw up filing bankruptcy. However, I'm just trying to do what is right and I felt this was the best thing to do. Needless to say, our credit report would show that we own 6 houses (in addition to my own house), as well as a car that paid off, a motorcycle and 2 snowmobiles. We have some assets, but we are willing to lose them if we have to.
They are just things....
On the flip side...we have a rental business. At the beginning of this year, we owned 7 houses. In September, we gave one back that we purchased on contract. We lost 10K in that deal--but relieved that the headache is gone. We signed papers on another property that we sold to the tenant, yesterday. We didn't make a dime on it. In fact, we convinced the previous owners (that gave us a 20% seller carryback), to take less money in an effort to get the place sold. IN reality, we are selling for less then we paid because that's just the market value right now. We are working on selling 2 more houses to the tenants and another has been on the market for over a year with no offers. Tough break, but we are doing what we can to get out of the mess that got us here.
I'm sure that will screw up filing bankruptcy. However, I'm just trying to do what is right and I felt this was the best thing to do. Needless to say, our credit report would show that we own 6 houses (in addition to my own house), as well as a car that paid off, a motorcycle and 2 snowmobiles. We have some assets, but we are willing to lose them if we have to.
They are just things....
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