My husband & I own a home. We have never been late on any of our bills. However the debt we owe is suffocating us. We have little wiggle room in our checking account when we pay all our bills. It's making really scary to live under so much stress of wondering if we're going to overdraw just so he can buy gas to drive to and from work.
We were considering selling our home, but found out from a Realtor who came out that our home is only going to market for what we currently owe. That price won't pay for closing costs and a loan we had to take out to replace the new heating and cooling unit this last summer. We don't have any money to bring to the table to help cover any of the costs. Later another realtor came out and suggested we give the house back to the bank because the market where we are is terrible and our neighborhood has had 4 foreclosures in the past 2 years, making the likelihood of the house sale to not happen. We quickly dropped the sale idea after we put it up on the market last year with not a SINGLE call! We just don't want to go through that again. Short sale will affect our credit like a foreclosure I'm told. So now my dh & I are considering taking the next step to file bankruptcy, but we both are clueless! I want to research and know what we can do BEFORE using up the free consulation from the bankruptcy lawyer.
Do we default on the credit cards and the mortgage before filing? How will that work if the bank records are pulled and it's obvious the money to pay those bills is there, but it'd make living ONCE again very very tight!?
We have a home opening up to us in another state from family who own a lot of their own properties in May. They will sell us the home no matter our credit so owning a home isn't an issue to us as we can get around that with my husband's family helping. We would prefer to strip our credit cards, medical debt, mortgage, and be able to have a fresh start. Is this realistic?
I was thinking a Chapter 7 would work, but will we be required to file a Chapter 13? My husband is the only one working with 5 people in the house. No idea if this information that is helpful or not. Do we just pay the mortgage payments until the bankruptcy is started? Or do we begin defaulting now? What about the credit cards? Do we default on those as well or wait until we file? I want to know that IF we can default we can have that extra money to put towards our move (2200 miles away).
I'm sorry for all the confusing chatter, but we're so new into this idea that it's scary as heck! And I don't want to default on anything IF it's going to make the entire process worse.
We were considering selling our home, but found out from a Realtor who came out that our home is only going to market for what we currently owe. That price won't pay for closing costs and a loan we had to take out to replace the new heating and cooling unit this last summer. We don't have any money to bring to the table to help cover any of the costs. Later another realtor came out and suggested we give the house back to the bank because the market where we are is terrible and our neighborhood has had 4 foreclosures in the past 2 years, making the likelihood of the house sale to not happen. We quickly dropped the sale idea after we put it up on the market last year with not a SINGLE call! We just don't want to go through that again. Short sale will affect our credit like a foreclosure I'm told. So now my dh & I are considering taking the next step to file bankruptcy, but we both are clueless! I want to research and know what we can do BEFORE using up the free consulation from the bankruptcy lawyer.
Do we default on the credit cards and the mortgage before filing? How will that work if the bank records are pulled and it's obvious the money to pay those bills is there, but it'd make living ONCE again very very tight!?
We have a home opening up to us in another state from family who own a lot of their own properties in May. They will sell us the home no matter our credit so owning a home isn't an issue to us as we can get around that with my husband's family helping. We would prefer to strip our credit cards, medical debt, mortgage, and be able to have a fresh start. Is this realistic?
I was thinking a Chapter 7 would work, but will we be required to file a Chapter 13? My husband is the only one working with 5 people in the house. No idea if this information that is helpful or not. Do we just pay the mortgage payments until the bankruptcy is started? Or do we begin defaulting now? What about the credit cards? Do we default on those as well or wait until we file? I want to know that IF we can default we can have that extra money to put towards our move (2200 miles away).
I'm sorry for all the confusing chatter, but we're so new into this idea that it's scary as heck! And I don't want to default on anything IF it's going to make the entire process worse.
We have only a small handful of bankruptcy attorneys here.
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