Stock Sale/Property Tax question prior to filing

[CreditCretin]

Brief review, we met with a couple attorney's last year and decided to put off the bankruptcy a few months to plan for it, bought a new car since the old one was falling apart, but didn't buy extravagant. Then wife had an injury kept her home bound for months, which delayed us further from filing. Still current on all payments (CC/Car/House) and have made 8 payments on the new car. Things are getting increasingly tight, and I hope to meet with a few more lawyers in the next two weeks to make a decision. My wife is a little apprehensive and is hoping to find out exactly what we qualify for (7 or 13) and if it's a 13, would we have enough to live on for 5 years.

Ok, now for the question, I have about 2000.00 worth of stock which I am going to either have to sell or give to the trustee. We have a property tax bill coming up in June for 4000.00 which I have about 2400 saved for. Also a Sears bill for matresses we bought 2 years ago, with a deferred interest setup, so if it isn't paid by 5/26 they will tack on 1000.00 in interest charges on a 1000.00 balance.. Gotta love those deferred plans, 100% interest...

Anyway, I am thinking of selling the stock and using the money to pay off the Sears bill and also pay the property taxes before we file. Is this a bad idea? I know we shouldn't really be paying off credit cards like that, I am worried it would appear to be a preferential payment, but the thought of having another 1000.00 added to our total debt is just hard to swallow. Anyone have any suggestions. I doubt the trustee would have a problem with us using the stock money to pay a property tax bill, but I really don't know what to do. I know the best suggestion is to find a lawyer quick and ask them, but don't know if I can do that before I need to pay that Sears bill. The other bad thing is I had an emergency dental situation last week and had to put 1000 on a credit card. I was sick about it. We have been trying for the last 8 months to use the cards as little as possible and not to charge anything over 100.00 on one card at time and then that happened. The doctor demanded payment in full so I really was stuck. I should have said no, I didn't have it, and will have to do this once we file, but at the time, I fell back on my habits and just paid it when they pressured me.

Anyone have any suggestions.

[scorpion35]

Brief review, we met with a couple attorney's last year and decided to put off the bankruptcy a few months to plan for it, bought a new car since the old one was falling apart, but didn't buy extravagant. Then wife had an injury kept her home bound for months, which delayed us further from filing. Still current on all payments (CC/Car/House) and have made 8 payments on the new car. Things are getting increasingly tight, and I hope to meet with a few more lawyers in the next two weeks to make a decision. My wife is a little apprehensive and is hoping to find out exactly what we qualify for (7 or 13) and if it's a 13, would we have enough to live on for 5 years.

Ok, now for the question, I have about 2000.00 worth of stock which I am going to either have to sell or give to the trustee. We have a property tax bill coming up in June for 4000.00 which I have about 2400 saved for. Also a Sears bill for matresses we bought 2 years ago, with a deferred interest setup, so if it isn't paid by 5/26 they will tack on 1000.00 in interest charges on a 1000.00 balance.. Gotta love those deferred plans, 100% interest...

Anyway, I am thinking of selling the stock and using the money to pay off the Sears bill and also pay the property taxes before we file. Is this a bad idea? I know we shouldn't really be paying off credit cards like that, I am worried it would appear to be a preferential payment, but the thought of having another 1000.00 added to our total debt is just hard to swallow. Anyone have any suggestions. I doubt the trustee would have a problem with us using the stock money to pay a property tax bill, but I really don't know what to do. I know the best suggestion is to find a lawyer quick and ask them, but don't know if I can do that before I need to pay that Sears bill. The other bad thing is I had an emergency dental situation last week and had to put 1000 on a credit card. I was sick about it. We have been trying for the last 8 months to use the cards as little as possible and not to charge anything over 100.00 on one card at time and then that happened. The doctor demanded payment in full so I really was stuck. I should have said no, I didn't have it, and will have to do this once we file, but at the time, I fell back on my habits and just paid it when they pressured me.

Anyone have any suggestions.

why pay the sears bill if u are going to file?
but if u decide to pay the sears bill be aware that the trustee will probably go after sears to get the $1000 back.
u cannot pay 1 creditor and not the others.its called preferencial payment.
i don't know about selling the stock to pay taxes.
if it was a medical emergency i think u will be ok.
hold off filling a couple months and make monthly payments on that credit card.

[CreditCretin]

why pay the sears bill if u are going to file?
but if u decide to pay the sears bill be aware that the trustee will probably go after sears to get the $1000 back.
u cannot pay 1 creditor and not the others.its called preferencial payment.
i don't know about selling the stock to pay taxes.
if it was a medical emergency i think u will be ok.
hold off filling a couple months and make monthly payments on that credit card.

I am not really sure why I feel compelled to pay the Sears bill. I guess because I feel that if we do the 13 route, it would be another 900 on top of everything else we 'owe' because of the interest rate that was deferred. Also, I keep thinking (hoping) that something will happen and we won't have to file. I am dreading this whole process. I am still paying all my other credit cards, mostly minimums but some of them are 350 a month, so it's not like I am not paying a card to pay Sears a bigger chunk. Maybe I will try to touch base with an attorney next week before I send the Sears bill. We interviewed two attorney's last fall and we weren't sure about either one. The 2nd one we felt a little better about, and actually another family member used him, but we just feel like he didn't try hard enough with them.

For the stock sale/tax thing, if I don't sell the stock I won't be able to pay my property tax. Not sure if they can put a county property tax bill into a bankruptcy, I didn't think they could and I would have to pay one way or another. That is one of the reasons I am considering filing, I pay so much in miniums every month, I don't have anything left to save for the taxes anymore, so I rely on the tax refund, which was smaller this year. Anyway, thanks for the advice, I am still pretty confused about the whole issue.

[LadyInTheRed]

we met with a couple attorney's last year and decided to put off the bankruptcy a few months to plan for it,

Also, I keep thinking (hoping) that something will happen and we won't have to file. I am dreading this whole process.

It sounds like you decided to file bankruptcy a few months ago. Did something change to improve your situation? You need to decide for sure what you are going to do. If you need to talk to another attorney to decide, do it now before your Sears bill is due. If you don't file for bankruptcy, you don't want to add $1,000 to the debt you are going to pay.

If you are going to file bankruptcy, there is no advantage to paying Sears. You will be throwing your money away. The amount you owe to Sears will not increase the amount you pay in a Chap 13 unless you have enough disposable income to pay 100% of your unsecured debt during your plan.

Most people are told to stop paying all unsecured creditors as soon as they know they will file bankruptcy. There are exceptions and the card you charged your dentist bill to could be an exception. The best answer to that will come from an attorney with experience in your district.

You can't make rational decisions on what to sell, what to pay and what not to pay until you decide whether to file.

[andy158]

Also, I keep thinking (hoping) that something will happen and we won't have to file.

We were hoping something would "happen" (i.e. lottery, inheritance, end of the world, etc.) for six months before we figured fate was not going to change anything for the good. That was six months we could have been paying to get out of this mess instead of paying interest payments on cc's.

We had about $2,500 in my company stock that we transfered to my sister when our bk was inevitable. That was payment for borrowing the lawyer fees from her.

[CreditCretin]

I made an appointment with two different lawyers this weekend, so I guess I will lay it all out for them, and make a decision after that.