Why Are/Have You Filed BK?

[Me2Broke]

This was a difficult poll to answer, as we are filing due to job lost and debt, a combination of both. Although, we most likely would not have the amount of debt had I not lost my job. Of course we used money and thought we would always be in a position to pay it back. Little did i know.

[wobbly]

Hi,

Poll: What Caused You to File BK?This poll will close on 10-01-2032 at 08:23 AM

Divorce/Separation
Long-Term Unemployment
Excessive Credit Debt
Excessive Medical Bills

Other : )

A series of unfortunate events and some poor financial decisions over a few years?

Our household income dropped from the 150K to 100K. Out of work for 6 months.
I refinanced my home with an 80/20 loan at the worst possible moment. The house appraised at 428K in 2006 and is down to 265K in 2011.
I had some credit card debt but it was manageable. I paid all the bills on time and spent most of my savings to stay current.
I worked with our mortgage servicers for over a year attempting to modify our loans. This was a ridiculous farce.
I went to a lawyer to see if we could MAKE the mortgage servicers modify our loans.
The nice lawyer said, "We can file chapter 13 and strip the $75,000.00 on your second if you like.

This was a very difficult decision for me. But I decided, either pay every cent we make on debts, risk loosing our home, and struggle until we die, or file and recover in 5 years.

We chose the latter.

I do feel like an idiot and failure sometimes, but also like I was cheated by the mortgage industry. But it's really on me. I made those stupid mistakes.

Thank You for asking. : )

[Snax]

Wobbly,

You didn't choose to have medical bills or unemployment. These are factors that all of Wall Street are guilty of having a hand in, whether it be through outsourcing or the status quo of a for-profit health care system. Have no guilt about it. If the tables were turned, they'd be doing the same.

You are now on the road to recovery. Enjoy it!

[ottoagain]

Upside-down. House needs major repairs that would cost more than the place is worth. We owe about 160K and the homes nearby are selling for 30-80K.
Just filed CH7 and hope to stay here for at least 1 year, save all the money I can and buy a home for cash.

Recent work slow-down due to a warm winter has cut my pay in half. We're living paycheck-to-paycheck and keeping up with utilities and the car payment.
Shopping for food is more planned than before since we used to just go buy what we wanted. Packing a lunch now instead of using the debit card for drive-thru is saving money and healthier for me. The dogs get their shots at a traveling clinic at Petco ($52) rather than the nice, expensive Vet Clinic ($90+). Lots of little changes that are helping us to learn to live on as little money as possible so we can save as much as possible.

[botsal]

.

[MarkHenry]

Thanks for the information.

[ukmoney]

The most common reason now a days to choose to file BK is your credit debt in excess...

But Anyone can apply to the court to make them bankrupt, including individuals, sole traders and members of a partnership. There are different procedures for companies and partnerships.

Only the court can make you bankrupt, and not all courts deal with bankruptcy cases. You can make yourself bankrupt by petitioning (applying to) the court. Your creditors can usually petition the court if you owe them at least £750. You are bankrupt when the court issues a bankruptcy order against you.

There are fees and procedures you have to follow - these are different in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[hlro]

Depression and a bad relationship took me down...

I met this guy, fell in love or what I thought was love and then all my redflags when up (I will only bore you with some specifics). Then April 20th 2011 my grandmother died. I was a lil depressed but when she passed I got a lot more depressed. Then July 26th 2011 I came home to find my close friend and roomate dead from a drug overdose (he was paying half the rent on a $950 per month 1 bedroom apartment) - I became a lot more depressed. My relationship went to shit - I would even go as far to say as the boyfriend took advantage of my weak emotional state. I spent money to try and feel better but when your trying to readjust to paying almost everything yourself (boyfriend only covered $100 in rent and took care of the food bill...all $150 of it) I found myself strapped for cash so I took out pay day loans to cover the expenses my job didn't.

I had to move because I could no longer afford the rent and now couch I'm surfing at a friends apartment.
I dumped my boyfriend.
And I'm about to dump my job - customer service rep for almost 6 years working in a call center for an insurance company.

It's obvious that this time in my life is about change - for the better and I'm so glad for this forum.

[nikcool]

My husband and I were in the process of cleaning up credit mistakes from when we were younger, and I had our first child. It would have been okay, but I got stuck in the hospital for a few months, and she was born very early. So I was saddled with unexpected bills, plus I had a kid in the NICU. The hospital social worker set her up for a special medicaid for NICU kids and I *thought* that the hospital put my bills on a payment plan. Then, I got sick again, and had to go to a lot of doctors and specialists... which could not find out why I got sick. My daughter was dropped from the special medicaid because I made too much money, which meant I owed more money. So I find another job and things are a little better... then more health issues come up, and I lose the job because I wasn't there long enough to earn FMLA. By then, husband and I are already saddled with medical bills, but we were stubborn and still trying to pay. Most of our other credit was old and written off by that point, so I thought we could get on track and raise our scores. Then my husband got garnished and everything fell apart. He was garnished just enough that we couldn't afford the car, insurance and our cell phones. We're in an area without public transportation and have a sick kid, so we need the car.

That's why we filed.

[rojer]

We are One of the best firm in Colorado who filling the Bankruptcy without lawyer in Colorado. By filing bankruptcy successfully discharge your past due rent and receive a fresh start with your landlord

[patrickmead]

A lot of people do chapter 13's these days to get out of foreclosure. I used to file more ch.7's now it seems like I do more 13's/

[glassmoon]

When I filed I had 1 Visa student card, 1 master card, 7 store specific cards, a cash loan (used to buy my very first car....older Volvo 240), an auto loan (2006 new car), and $30k in student loans. The only credit card I asked for was the Visa card so I had a way to purchase school supplies since my parents kept 100% of my paychecks from my cashier job I had at the time. All those other cards were obtained due to the various demands of my parents who were already in Ch 13. The cash loan arrived as a surprise...I never applied for it but it was my means to a desperately needed car. Had to have a car or lose my new job. From 2000-2009 I held reasonably good paying hourly jobs so I was able to make my regular payments. I got struck a heavy blow in 2007 when the service manager (I was an admin asst for an HVAC contractor) coughed in my face. I contracted "walking pneumonia" which cost me nearly 2 month's wages since I could only work on days when I could actually talk a little. The lost wages made it nearly impossible keep up with all those payments so I went to debt counseling at a non-profit...MMI (Money Management International). The payment was nearly $600 not including my car. ...and then my boss at the HVAC company changed my hours which cut all the overtime I had been earning. I kept at it for about 5 months when I finally realized I couldn't keep it up and then contacted the same bk attorney my parents used. I filed in June 2008 and confirmed Oct 2008. In 2009 I was hit with the loss of my job and then on unemployment. Plan was modified. Now I'm working again at a menial job making barely above minimum wage. My bk payment is almost 50% of my income. It is VERY tough. After bills, meds for dad/sister, and groceries I barely have enough money to buy gas for my little car...Corolla. I have no money left to purchase "fun stuff" like CDs of my favorite bands or DVDs.
I am so looking forward to July/August 2013...payoff! Will I get another credit card? Probably to help rebuild my credit and also for emergencies...like having to rent a car if I'm in a wreck. I've been in 2 no-fault wrecks with my new car. Both times the rental company didn't want to discuss renting since all I had available was a debit card. When the insurance company sent the info to them then they set up the car rental.

[aquabluesrq]

Mortgage deficiency judgment.

Husband lost job. Was unable to find new job where the house was located. Property lost $160,000 in value (no HELOC). Tried to short sale the property to no avail. Hooray for the "American Dream"!

[kawh]

Underemployment and use of credit to live on, but the root cause was depression.

[dragondad]

Hi everyone

New here, 1st post so bear with me. I never thought I would be in this position, but I am getting ready to meet with a lawyer and most likely will be filing. The last few years have been torture, steadily getting worse, and this week came to the realization there is just no other way out.

Like many it began with a house. March of 2006. At the time, the market was going nowhere but up, and each month it looked less and less likely we would be able to find a house. We were pregnant with our first (of 3) child and wanted a home more than anything. We paid $454k for a 25 year old 1200ft trac home. Ouch. We were one of 3 offers, and there were litterally 5 homes in the area in our price range, everything else was higher. I though we did everything right. We put 10% down ($45k), 80% first and 10% second. Both mortgages fixed and competative rates for the day. It was a stretch, and ment DW would have to work. Her mother owned a very small but moderately successful contracting company, and they decided to run it together out of our home so DW could run the office work from home and raise the kids, and MIL would do the field measuring and estimating. To begin with everything worked ok.

You can see where this is going. We bought at the top of the market (did not know it was the top of course) and by the end of 2007 we began our long tortureous spiral to where we are today. At the end of 2007, beginning of 2008 the floor fell out of the economy, including the contracting business. At this point we had 2 kids, and had just found out number 3 was on the way. You know why IUDs are 99.98% effective and not 100%? Because of people like us! Then began the repetative cycle of little to no work being contracted and thus my wife not getting paid, or very little. We were new homeowners, stretched budget and with little reserve. What we did have was almost instantly gone, but we had great credit and lots of ceiling on credit cards with checks for 1.5% for 18 months, etc. So we had the choice of not paying the mortgage, or borrowing from credit cards. We borrowed, figuring the economy would pick up before those came due. The contracing business would have a few good months, DW would get paid, even a little back pay, but never all of it, and wile it would be enough to get current, it would not be enough to pay what we borrowed.

Repeat this cycle 2-3 times a year for several years, each time the debt building. Each time figuring this has to be it, business will get better, we will dig out. With 3 kids at home there was no job my wife could get outside the home that would cover child care much less add to our income, so she did the best she could with the business. Well, while we continued to have busy slow cycles, the economy never got better, and all those low interest offers expired. Now we had mounting high interest debt, with higher monthly minimims. Now we almost couldn't keep up even in good months. In this time I took out a 401k loan and repaid it.

Fast forward to April 2011. Some miscalculations on my part, in addition to some tax gimmics by the Obama administration ment we were not witholding nearly enough federal taxes in 2010. So instead of our usual $2500 or so refund that I used to pay property taxes and catch up some stuff, we had a $900 bill. This was the beginning of the end. We could not pay any of it. Fed/State taxes, property taxes, and it was a down time for the business. We fell far enough behind on the mortgage we started getting notices. The icing on the cake is my job requires a security clearance, which was comming up for review the following year. I tried to talk BK with my DW then, but anytime I tried to talk to her about money she would get snippy and shut me down. She had a bad experience with her family and had to file BK a couple years before she met me. The lawyer did a lousy job and there are little things that have been inconveniences since. She did not even want to entertain BK

So fall of 2011 I threw my hail Mary. Pulled another 401k loan, made the mortgages current, paid all back taxes, brought all credit current, closed all of my accounts and made payment arraingement for 60 months at much lower, some even 0% interest reducing monthly minimums. I sold my commuter car I was leasing. I actually got $1400 more than the loan, added another $2000 and bought a 11 year old econo car for commuting. Rewrote the loan on the family car. In all, I reduced the monthly minimum output by almost $1000 a month. Told DW we could get by with less pay.

Again, for a few months it worked, all the bills were getting paid. Had my clearance review. Had to have a long frank conversation with the investigator, they are mostly concerned if you are being careless/frivilous/gambling, that sort of thing, and was cleared. Then spring came and again no work. DW needed to clear around $2000 a month (not really that much when you think about it, works out to about $33k a year gross for managing a business). So we were running $1000 to $2000 a month deficits. I don't know why it is easier to pay the credit cards than the mortgage, but that is what we did a couple months. The mortgage got late, then really late. I stopped paying all my unsecured debt.

Our home has lost 40% of it's value. We owe $340k on the 1st, $42k on the second, and the house is worth $260k. We love our home, our neighborhood, our excelent schools, moving is the last thing we want to do. I attempted to get a loan modification. My loan is not Freddie or Fannie, or FHA insured, so no goverment refinance or bailout for me. Bank came back with an offer that even though it included taxes and insurance, was $300 HIGHER a month. HUH??? How is that supposed to help me?? My salary divided by 12 is what they use for gross, but since I am paid every 2 weeks, 10 of 12 months I have less than that to work with. Then consider all my deductions, including my 401k loan, and the reality is our net is over 2k less than the gross figure they used.

Oh, and if this was not enough, my beautiful son was diagnosed with autism this year. He is mild. He communicates, is happy friendly and craves attention, so in this respect we are fortunate. It could have been much worse and for that I am thankfull. But no one wants to hear their child is not "normal" and may potentially never lead a normal life. He is in a wonderful program with our school district and making progress, but we have no idea what is in store for his future.

We have been getting more and more stressed for years now, hoping and praying things will get better. At this point we are cracking. We are not the happy people we once were, I am constantly having to remind myself that despite all this we could be much worse, and that our family is the most important thing. The worst of it is DW blames herself for this, because she and her mom run the business that has not been able to pay them. I have told her and continue to tell her it is NOT her fault, no one could have predicted what has happened, that we made all of these decisions TOGETHER, that I love her, prommised myself for richer or poorer to her on our wedding day, love my kids, and none of that will change. I hope she is hearing it. She has been down a lot, sometimes snappy, sometimes distant. And I admit I have been the same, and I hate it. I am tired and worn down, having dificuly enjoying even life's simlple pleasures. This is not who I am.

We had THE conversation last night. I told her I had talked to a financial counciler at work, and they reccomended I speak to a BK attorney. She asked if that is where we are at, yes, it is. We would need $15k just to become current on everything again. Have not paid property taxes at all this year (mortgage company did and is charging me for them), and while we currently have some work with the business, we won't get much because the business's debt load is very high now as well. Besides, we have hit bottom. The calls have started, the certified letters, etc. I am waiting for lawsuits and judgments, which will look bad to my security office. If I lose my job, we are truly destitute. The stress is overwhelming right now, if we don't do something soon, someone will have a mental breakdown or worse.

We deserve better than this. Our children deserve better than this. I want to live without this weight. I want to save for our retirement again, I want to save for our kids future. Heck, I want to be able to fix the car when it breaks, save for my next commuter car (mine has 115k and counting at 25k a year) or fix the house when it needs repair. I want to replace the 30 year old roof I have been holding together with henry's for 4 years. I want to save and take a little vacation once in a while.

We are going for a consultation and expect we will be told we should file. Probably 13 because I have a steady secure job and can cover our living expenses, and a small payment, and more than anything we want to keep our home.

I am glad I found this community, it helps just to type this out, tell our story, and know that we are not losers, and that we are not alone.

Wish us luck