Should Spouse Also File BK?

[flick2003]

I am filing BK for myself and with my wife out of work and a 10,000+ credit card in her name we are having trouble making ends meet. We were set up with Citi for an auto draft of $350 a month but now can't afford this. Should we contact Citi to arrange a lower payment for her? I would think it is ultimately better to have one person with ok credit than 2 with crappy credit.

Any experiences with deciding if both husband and wife should file?

TIA

[justbroke]

Well, first... Virginia is not a community property State. That means that if you have joint debts, the fact that one files will only shift the burden to the non-filing (non-debtor) spouse! If only one spouse is liable for credit debt, it can make a lot of sense in a non-community property State to have just one spouse file.

At some point you need to decide what you want to do and stop paying Citi at all! You could ask Citi, but they may not be willing to reduce... especially if you've been paying consistently on-time. It could be worth a shot as an interim solution.

The only way to really gauge as to whether both should file and whether both should file the same chapter of bankruptcy really depends on the type of debt, the type of arrears on property that you want to keep (such as your homestead), and the responsible spouse. Until you have all that information compiled, you can't make an informed decision as to how you should file.