cal home with alot of equity

[cbomb]

Thanks for the info, still a little confused about the equity result. As for the children I have done all that I can to protect them and to minimize her problems that effect them. She has been sober for almost a year, but still has the same addictive habits that have caused her so many problems. I am in the middle of the lawsuit for the attorney's expense, He will more than likely get a judgment for the 40k. Can he force the sale of the house for this unsecured debt on our real property, for a debt that began after my legal separation? Happy valentines day we need the love!

[cbomb]

sinkingfast I have not been able to find any info regarding your statement,
"and you've owned the home longer than that, you could be entitled to CA's regular pre 10/17 homestead exemption. That's the equity in your home. Not the total market value" please let me know where I can read up on it.

[SinkingFast]

I don't know that any such statement exists. That's why I said "could be".

The New Law simply states a homestead exemption limit of $125000 if you've owned the house less than 1215 days. The copies of the New Law I've seen don't say whether or not a state can revert to their existing homestead exemption. To my knowledge, that issue has not yet been addressed.

States like Texas and Florida were very debtor friendly, pre 10/17, with no equity limits on homesteads. Rich people planning to file BK would State hop to a debtor friendly state, sink all their money into property, and then file. The unlimited homestead exemption kept their assets secured and untouchable by BK.

You'll have to contact an attny regarding your equity and see what they have to say.

[cbomb]

Are there data bases of real cases that I can browse thru to find cases of similair circumstances, I read about pacer or something, but it sounds costly?
Most courts have made records availible to be viewed online for free, but is the filing in fed court not state? I have been using the court records to view collections cases and there outcomes.

[SinkingFast]

PACER can be expensive, but worth it at the same time.

http://www.bankruptcyforum.com/t1011-what-is-pacer.html

That's a link to a thread about PACER and there's a link in the thread to the PACER website.

BK is a Federal proceeding administered in the US Court System.

If you try to use PACER to learn, it's gonna be hit or miss finding someone who's case is similar to yours.

I've used it to research the background of attnys we've Consulted with. How many filings they have under the New Law. I've looked at expenses people have claimed to get a feel for what the Court expects to see and/or will allow in various categories. What kinds of values have been submitted for vehicles and other types of property. Lots of useful information.

A lot of BK filing isn't about how you actually live. It's about what the Court is used to seeing in the way of expenses. You don't want to go in saying you spend $1500/month for food when the Court is used to seeing $800 for a family of your size. Of course, any decent attny you chat with will "advise" you ammend your expense list to reflect what the Court wants to see. The attnys know what they can and cannot present to the Court.

And, yes it can be expensive. PACER charges $0.08/page and one webpage can be lots of PACER billable pages. One attny's list of links to cases they've filed that I looked at, on one webpage, was 45 billable PACER pages. That was just links by people's names with no idea what Chapter they filed, or anything. Just that all those people used the same attny.

For the equity issue, you'd be best off to address that with attnys as you go thru Consults. Get a consensus of opinions on how it's gonna be handled. You may find that different attnys will give you different answers to the same question. We had that happen to us. Different attnys take different approaches, have different interpretations of the law. Also, there's an interpersonal dynamic between each attny and the Trustees and Judges that comes into play as well. Trustees and Judges like some attnys and work well with them, while they think very little of other attnys and tend to be less lenient in some situations.

[Graphic]

You can go to library and read the court digests..and about 5 or 6 others sets of books they have. Since it's public it is published in books and put online thru companies like Westlaw and Lexis.

However, since the new law is in place I don'r know how many cases you'd have similar to yours with the filings that have taken place so far.

[cbomb]

my local law library has westlaw, lexis on the computer and access to law data bases are all free to view. I will typically go there and do research and if I find a book that I want to study, it is usually in digital form. Just copy and paste it into an email word processor and email it to yourself, works great even on books that are 1000's of pages long. its a text file that is megs in size but public law library's have high speed connections that upload in minutes. Download at home is a different story, but having the info on the computer saves at least a few trees. I will go Monday to find out what is I can find, maybe a cheap way to view, sort, search, and, query the database of case files.

[Minnymouth]

Best option to you is consult with 3 attorneys - see what each one says - take notes.
Come home - compare......
Yours is an unusual circumstance with a lot involved.....
so chances of "finding" a case similar to yours is not good, especially under the new laws. Not enough cases filed yet........

Save yourself a lot of time, grief, and confusion about your options.

Consultations are normally free......

Listen to the attorneys - the research some, then you'll know what your looking FOR.....

Keep us posted.