My wife and I filed for CH7 on November 30th due to high credit card debt and the loss of my wife's job. We should have our discharge in hand by early April based on the date of our 341 meeting. The problem at that point will be what to do with our house. It's underwater, but not by much, so we had considered trying to hold on to it. We owe about $230K (30 year fixed @ 6.125%) and the house is worth somewhere between $195-215K. Things were going fine after we stopped paying the minimums on our cards-the extra money I had (I'm still employed thank God) plus my wife's unemployment was getting us by just fine. She has not had any luck finding work and it's not looking any better at this point. Now of course Congress is talking about cutting unemployment benefits completely at the end of 2012. If they don't pass an extension we won't be able to make our January 2013 mortgage payment. She was hoping to be able to ride out federal emergency unemployment compensation benefits until at least May or June when there (hopefully) will be teaching positions advertised for the 2013-2014 school year, but even then we would need unemployment to get us through until the end of August/beginning of September when she got her first paycheck.
Basically, we're hoping that if we need to we can stop paying in January, and have one of two things happen later in the year:
A: My wife gets a job starting in September 2013, we can both show income to our bank, enter mediation, and hopefully come to a deal
B: She doesn't get a job and we stay in our home as long as we possibly can in order to horde cash so that when we finally do have to leave we have an emergency fund and a large security deposit which we'll likely need because of the BK/foreclosure on our credit report.
Based on this, how should we proceed if federal EUC comes to an end on December 31st? One thing to note, our mortgage is held by a small local bank which likely does not have a lot of inventory to go through like the giant banks. Will that influence how long the process takes, or is it more of a logjam in the courts? I've heard that foreclosures are on the rise in NJ and the average is about 950 days because we're a judicial state. Is there anyway to know if we would have that long? Would we need a lawyer to tie it up in the courts for long? If so that makes me wonder if the cost would be worth it. Finally, what about property taxes-I know that once we're discharged we're no longer liable for the home, but can the town come after us for the taxes?
Basically, we're hoping that if we need to we can stop paying in January, and have one of two things happen later in the year:
A: My wife gets a job starting in September 2013, we can both show income to our bank, enter mediation, and hopefully come to a deal
B: She doesn't get a job and we stay in our home as long as we possibly can in order to horde cash so that when we finally do have to leave we have an emergency fund and a large security deposit which we'll likely need because of the BK/foreclosure on our credit report.
Based on this, how should we proceed if federal EUC comes to an end on December 31st? One thing to note, our mortgage is held by a small local bank which likely does not have a lot of inventory to go through like the giant banks. Will that influence how long the process takes, or is it more of a logjam in the courts? I've heard that foreclosures are on the rise in NJ and the average is about 950 days because we're a judicial state. Is there anyway to know if we would have that long? Would we need a lawyer to tie it up in the courts for long? If so that makes me wonder if the cost would be worth it. Finally, what about property taxes-I know that once we're discharged we're no longer liable for the home, but can the town come after us for the taxes?
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