Need advise - Lots of Secured and Unsecured Debt

[BrokeCouple]

[catleg]

Apparently there were some changes put into the bankruptcy "reform" of 2005 which affected chapter 11 by businesses negatively, to the extent that it gave secured (trade) creditors greater power to force a liquidation (example: Circuit City). So you need to look into that stuff a little. But otherwise I think your lawyer was right (as much as I know about it)..come up with a business plan. In chapter 11 you have a lot more freedom to direct your cash flow to your secured creditors (vs unsecureds, paying them is just pissing money away). You probably won't find a whole lot of 11 expertise here, but some of us have at least peripherally looked at it as an alternative to a 13 when a 7 isn't allowed by the means test. Also I get the impression that commercial real estate is also going to be another exercise in extend and pretend, so hopefully your RE lenders will play ball. Good luck!

[biotechsolution]

the drawback on the chapter 11 is that it could cost in the neighborhood of 20-25K.

[BrokeCouple]

I have no secured trade debts. I do have trade debt of 25k to 40k at any given time but it is all Net 30-45 and all my trade debt is being paid on-time and always has been.

All my unsecured debt is either CC or Credit Lines from major credit card companies. I have one 100k unsecured CL that was originally from a local bank but that bank was bought out and merged several times and the line was eventually taken over by one of the major CC companies but remained serviced by the bank, so I am not real sure who owns the debt but it was an unsecured line of credit given to me personally.

BTW, I don't know if this helps or hurts but some of my debt are in my business names, but the businesses are all sole prop / dba anyway. No corporations at all.

Thanks Again!

[catleg]

The lawyers get paid out of the estate funds. So in most cases, more to the lawyers means less to the unsecured creditors. Unless you get stuck defending AP's.

[BrokeCouple]

What are AP's?