Need help, many questions

[HardLuck]

OK I owe basically 10k on my truck, 104,000 on the house, 5000 in back property taxes. about 3k in misc credit cards,med bills,etc.
I am thinking about filing alone bring home pay is roughly 950 for 2 wks. I want to use the ch13 as a "tool" to catch up, I have just been robbing peter to pay paul for too long.
I will be meeting with a lawyer early next week as my home is up for forclosure sale mar 12.
Some questions are:
should I get taxes done asap and get the money as fast as I can and keep the money out of my account?
Will my house have to be paid off by the end on the CH13?
Will my house payment be refigured to a lower rate?
what is a trustee and how do they work?
do they pay all bills and I just pay the trustee?
do I have to go before a judge? ( just kind of a phobia not wanted or anything just not appealing at all to me)
will they pay off my property taxes and set up an escrow account for future taxes?
will my employer know about my filing status?
and the lawyer left me a message saying his fees would be included in the payment, but I would have to come up w/$275 to get going is this reasonable?
I know it is a lot but I have questions and want to be better informed before I go talk to my lawyer.

Thank you all!

[lrprn]

I know it is a lot but I have questions and want to be better informed before I go talk to my lawyer.

You didn't say which chapter you hope to file, so read these sites about Ch 7 and Ch 13 - they will answer most of your questions. Then come back and we'll tackle the questions that don't get answered.

Chapter 7 -

http://www.moranlaw.net/chapter7.htm

http://www.uscourts.gov/bankruptcycourts/bankruptcybasics/chapter7.html

Chapter 13 -

http://www.uscourts.gov/bankruptcycourts/bankruptcybasics/chapter13.html

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/practical/bankruptcy13_whatis.html

Differences Between Ch 7 and Ch 13 -

http://www.mroselaw.com/CM/Custom/Chapter-7-13-Comparison.asp

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/practical/books/family_legal_guide/bankruptcy_7_13.pdf

[One Half Full]

Hi hard luck. I think the best thing to do is to read the tactical guide to Bk or some other piece of writing that will go through the steps with you. I was freaking out and had all sorts of Questions. The tactical guide in the stickies is really good.

I also thought I could become a 13 and found that I don't make enough to be a 13, so I became a 7. I actually think you might need to become a 7. You only make about 200 a month more than me, and your expenses are huge compared to mine. Please look carefully at the means tests and find out for sure if you are a 7 or a 13.

[HardLuck]

Those amounts are of course payoff amounts, my past due amounts are about 20k.
I should be going in to see the lawyer monday.
I skimmed the manual in the sticky, probably read it thouroughly this weekend.
In a 7 is it still possible to keep the truck and house?
Past due property taxes of about 6,500 and behind mortgage payments are the biggest of the problems right now.
I just want to keep the house and truck.

[woeisme]

You have to catch up with your morgage payments to file CH 7, can't be in arrears when you file 7. Depends on how much equity you have in the house and the truck whether you will be able to keep them or not, and what your state's exemptions are. If you have low equity or big exemptions, you should be able to keep them, if you have lots of equity and low exemptions, you might have to file CH 13 to keep them, and even then your payment would need to be high enough that your creditors would get at least as much as they would in a CH 7 if they forced you to liquidate your equity.