I spent a lot of time over the weekend looking thru the new BK law for a definition of family/household/dependents. If we can count my Mom, who lives with us, we fall under the Median Income. If we can't count Mom, we are a smidge over the Median Income. One dependent more or less is a huge difference for us. But there's no definitions set forth in the new BK law.
Since the BK law refers back to the IRS code a lot, and uses information provided by the Census Bureau, I checked both. According to both the IRS and the Census Bureau, Mom is a dependent. She's related by blood and or marriage, according to the Census Bureau. She's a Parent/Parent-in-Law whose earned income is less than $3400/year and we provide the bulk of her living support. She doesn't pay rent, no phone bill, no utilities bills, etc., so she qualifies that way with the IRS.
Let me start with we live in a smaller town. We are new here, but having lived in a small town before, I fig pretty much every one already knows every one. Several people we've talked to know our Landlord. Turns out the apt complex where Hubby rented before we moved here is owned by our landlord's son. There are/were only a dozen BK attnys in the phone book. 4 of those are no longer practicing since the laws changed. Legal Helpers' attny answered a couple of questions wrong so we are not even considering using them. I kinda fig'd the remaining attnys all know each other. I just didn't know exactly how small a world it really is.
Every where I searched over the weekend, sites said if you have further questions, contact the Clerk of your local BK Court. So, this morning, I called the Clerk of the Court. She kept telling me to have my attny ask. I kept telling her we have only done consultations. We don't have an attny yet. The attnys we've consulted with have differing opinions. The Clerk finally gave me the phone # of a Trustee's office to call.
So I call Trustee Brown's office (not real name). The person who answered the phone did not want to answer as that could be construed as giving legal advice. I said I'm not looking for advice, I want a definition. I told her about my research and no info in the new law on what constitutes a family/what dependents are or can be. I told her that different attnys we'd consulted had different opinions as well. So then she asked me if I had called Jones' office (not real name). He's the other Trustee in the area. What were his thoughts?? Turns out, one of the attny's we've consulted with is Jones' daughter. She's a practicing BK attny and partner in Jones' practice. At that point, the gal on the phone says we can't consult with Brown now as we had already seen Jones. If we do consult with Brown, and since we'd consulted with Jones' office, if we do file BK, the Court would be obligated to bring in another Trustee from an outside jurisdiction.
The receptionist/secretary at Trustee Brown's office suggest I call "Vickie" (Jones' daughter's first name, not real in this case) and have her to get an interpretation from her Dad. After all, Jones is a Trustee. He should know.
When we met with the geeky, nerdy guy, he made several comments. "He's picky that way." "He's mean that way." as Smith lopped off $ amount here and there of our expenses. If his comments were in reference to the Trustee, then "He" would be Trustee Jones. Trustee Brown is a woman. When we met with attny Jones, Trustee Jones' daughter, something Smith had said didn't set well with her. There was a flash across the face, a shift in body posture, then she recovered quickly and praised Smith as being a good attny. Maybe her reaction was because she knows her Dad really doesn't like the guy??!! Maybe that's why he's so picky and mean??
Now I'm in a quandry. The attny we were supposed to meet with this week has rescheduled. He can't see us until Feb 6th. We haven't paid any CC payments or the house payment this month cause we don't know what to do. The attnys couldn't even agree on that. 2 said we are OK to file even tho our charges aren't outside the 90 day limit. They are smaller, living expenses oriented. No luxury goods. Smith wants us to wait. The longer we wait, the tougher it could be. We aren't over limit on any cards, but some are close. It won't take much in late fees and/or jumps in interest rates to push those over the edge.
Any thoughts about using an attny who's the daughter of a Trustee?? Do we tell a sob story and pay some sort of payment to all our creditors for Jan to buy a little bit of time??
Since the BK law refers back to the IRS code a lot, and uses information provided by the Census Bureau, I checked both. According to both the IRS and the Census Bureau, Mom is a dependent. She's related by blood and or marriage, according to the Census Bureau. She's a Parent/Parent-in-Law whose earned income is less than $3400/year and we provide the bulk of her living support. She doesn't pay rent, no phone bill, no utilities bills, etc., so she qualifies that way with the IRS.
Let me start with we live in a smaller town. We are new here, but having lived in a small town before, I fig pretty much every one already knows every one. Several people we've talked to know our Landlord. Turns out the apt complex where Hubby rented before we moved here is owned by our landlord's son. There are/were only a dozen BK attnys in the phone book. 4 of those are no longer practicing since the laws changed. Legal Helpers' attny answered a couple of questions wrong so we are not even considering using them. I kinda fig'd the remaining attnys all know each other. I just didn't know exactly how small a world it really is.
Every where I searched over the weekend, sites said if you have further questions, contact the Clerk of your local BK Court. So, this morning, I called the Clerk of the Court. She kept telling me to have my attny ask. I kept telling her we have only done consultations. We don't have an attny yet. The attnys we've consulted with have differing opinions. The Clerk finally gave me the phone # of a Trustee's office to call.
So I call Trustee Brown's office (not real name). The person who answered the phone did not want to answer as that could be construed as giving legal advice. I said I'm not looking for advice, I want a definition. I told her about my research and no info in the new law on what constitutes a family/what dependents are or can be. I told her that different attnys we'd consulted had different opinions as well. So then she asked me if I had called Jones' office (not real name). He's the other Trustee in the area. What were his thoughts?? Turns out, one of the attny's we've consulted with is Jones' daughter. She's a practicing BK attny and partner in Jones' practice. At that point, the gal on the phone says we can't consult with Brown now as we had already seen Jones. If we do consult with Brown, and since we'd consulted with Jones' office, if we do file BK, the Court would be obligated to bring in another Trustee from an outside jurisdiction.
The receptionist/secretary at Trustee Brown's office suggest I call "Vickie" (Jones' daughter's first name, not real in this case) and have her to get an interpretation from her Dad. After all, Jones is a Trustee. He should know.
When we met with the geeky, nerdy guy, he made several comments. "He's picky that way." "He's mean that way." as Smith lopped off $ amount here and there of our expenses. If his comments were in reference to the Trustee, then "He" would be Trustee Jones. Trustee Brown is a woman. When we met with attny Jones, Trustee Jones' daughter, something Smith had said didn't set well with her. There was a flash across the face, a shift in body posture, then she recovered quickly and praised Smith as being a good attny. Maybe her reaction was because she knows her Dad really doesn't like the guy??!! Maybe that's why he's so picky and mean??
Now I'm in a quandry. The attny we were supposed to meet with this week has rescheduled. He can't see us until Feb 6th. We haven't paid any CC payments or the house payment this month cause we don't know what to do. The attnys couldn't even agree on that. 2 said we are OK to file even tho our charges aren't outside the 90 day limit. They are smaller, living expenses oriented. No luxury goods. Smith wants us to wait. The longer we wait, the tougher it could be. We aren't over limit on any cards, but some are close. It won't take much in late fees and/or jumps in interest rates to push those over the edge.
Any thoughts about using an attny who's the daughter of a Trustee?? Do we tell a sob story and pay some sort of payment to all our creditors for Jan to buy a little bit of time??
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