My situation is detailed below. The only real question I have is can anyone point me to a resource for filing pro se that goes through every step, what I need to do, etc...? And how much does it cost to do it yourself? I assume very little, but I'm guessing it's more than $0.
I fell behind on bills quite some time ago. My husband and I have been barely, and I mean BARELY, scraping by for the last few years. It's just one hit after another. I have several credit cards we basically had to ignore. They have long since gone to collection agencies, we have had no possible way to pay them. It doesn't amount to a lot, around $20k total. Most of that was actually discharged, not sure if that's the right word, this last year. The largest single card simply said "we give up" and wrote it off. Reported it to the IRS, but we were so poor that it was exempted from our 2014 taxes. That took about 15k off the total outstanding debt. I know, that's not the best way to do things, should have filed long ago, etc... I really don't care about my credit rating at this point, seriously the last thing I'm worried about.
Today I get served a lawsuit from one of the remaining cards. They're going to sue me for $2k. Couldn't believe it. So I have to respond one way or another or they'll have a judgement against me. I have no job right now, got fired from the last one before I had been there long enough to qualify for unemployment. So I've got zero income, my husband's income is nothing great, we're WELL below the median income. And a few months ago my car broke down for the last time, too expensive to even think about repairing it even if I had money, so it was sold for scrap. So now I have no way to get a job until we can scrape enough together to buy some cheap crappy car, who knows how long that will take. The only real asset is our house, but it's jointly owned and not a ton of equity or anything so I believe that it's basically impossible for them to take it in BK. Bank account is joint and there's never much in there, basically enough to live on until the next check. No tax refund coming, no IRA, no savings, no retirement, no life insurance on me.
The credit card debt is solely in my name. My husband had to file chapter 7 ten years ago due to a failed business. Literally this month it will finally fall off his credit history. And now I have to file. But none of the outstanding debt is in his name. We want to keep the house, the mortgage is current with no issues there. We have only one car, in his name not mine. So I'm thinking this should be fairly straight forward, but I don't know.
I know for $2k I can probably talk them down to pennies on the dollar and just settle, but I don't know where that money would come from. And there's one or two (have to check) other cards that could theoretically do the same thing. It's a pathetic amount to declare BK for but I don't know that we have any choice. Our house is in lousy shape, selling it for any real gain is a pipe dream. I know because the identical house next door just sold and it went for not much more than what we owe on ours, and it's in nicer shape. The mortgage is at a stupid low rate, like 2.8%, and not very high principle, so our mortgage payment is cheaper than any rental that I've seen in the area. So we literally can't afford to leave it.
Anyway, thanks for any advice you guys can give. I'm really stressing out right now.
I fell behind on bills quite some time ago. My husband and I have been barely, and I mean BARELY, scraping by for the last few years. It's just one hit after another. I have several credit cards we basically had to ignore. They have long since gone to collection agencies, we have had no possible way to pay them. It doesn't amount to a lot, around $20k total. Most of that was actually discharged, not sure if that's the right word, this last year. The largest single card simply said "we give up" and wrote it off. Reported it to the IRS, but we were so poor that it was exempted from our 2014 taxes. That took about 15k off the total outstanding debt. I know, that's not the best way to do things, should have filed long ago, etc... I really don't care about my credit rating at this point, seriously the last thing I'm worried about.
Today I get served a lawsuit from one of the remaining cards. They're going to sue me for $2k. Couldn't believe it. So I have to respond one way or another or they'll have a judgement against me. I have no job right now, got fired from the last one before I had been there long enough to qualify for unemployment. So I've got zero income, my husband's income is nothing great, we're WELL below the median income. And a few months ago my car broke down for the last time, too expensive to even think about repairing it even if I had money, so it was sold for scrap. So now I have no way to get a job until we can scrape enough together to buy some cheap crappy car, who knows how long that will take. The only real asset is our house, but it's jointly owned and not a ton of equity or anything so I believe that it's basically impossible for them to take it in BK. Bank account is joint and there's never much in there, basically enough to live on until the next check. No tax refund coming, no IRA, no savings, no retirement, no life insurance on me.
The credit card debt is solely in my name. My husband had to file chapter 7 ten years ago due to a failed business. Literally this month it will finally fall off his credit history. And now I have to file. But none of the outstanding debt is in his name. We want to keep the house, the mortgage is current with no issues there. We have only one car, in his name not mine. So I'm thinking this should be fairly straight forward, but I don't know.
I know for $2k I can probably talk them down to pennies on the dollar and just settle, but I don't know where that money would come from. And there's one or two (have to check) other cards that could theoretically do the same thing. It's a pathetic amount to declare BK for but I don't know that we have any choice. Our house is in lousy shape, selling it for any real gain is a pipe dream. I know because the identical house next door just sold and it went for not much more than what we owe on ours, and it's in nicer shape. The mortgage is at a stupid low rate, like 2.8%, and not very high principle, so our mortgage payment is cheaper than any rental that I've seen in the area. So we literally can't afford to leave it.
Anyway, thanks for any advice you guys can give. I'm really stressing out right now.
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