Thank you for having me in this forum. This will be a mix of my bankruptcy questions and history about me as I work through this challenging situation.
I am trying to find out what to do next. I honestly think that if I weren't still grieving the loss of my wife I would have been thinking more clearly and not done a Chapter 13 plan.
I have been participating in a Chapter 13 for about 6 months into a 48 month plan in Missouri.
My only income is VA disability. I am 100% service connected.
I have several credit cards ($85K).
I surrendered my home ($350K mortgage + $50K home improvement loan) because I couldn't sell it. I couldn't sell it because of a lien from a home improvement project. I talked to a realtor and there's no way I could sell in this market to cover selling costs, pay off home improvement loan to remove lien, concessions etc., without losing more money than I have to make it work, including selling all my vehicles. I also am not able to be around the home since it's where my late spouse passed away, and the memory is just too painful, even to rent to someone else. It really sucks because the loan was a VA loan less than 3% interest fixed. We wanted to "nest" there into our sunset years. This is the reason I even considered bankruptcy.
I have multiple vehicles, all paid off, valued at about $30K altogether. I got those values from kelley blue book. What they are worth today is likely less given depreciation in the last 6 months and an observed decline in value as referenced from the same sources (KBB, etc.), not to mention several mechanical issues.
I am second guessing my choice to keep those vehicles as two are going to cost more than they are worth to repair. They are basically salvage vehicles at this point. The only reason I kept one of them is because I am living out of it. I am storing the other two. The only vehicle that is worth much is worth about $7,500 private sale.
I don't really want any vehicles as the insurance and maintenance have become a nightmare. I don't have much stuff so I can just rent a room and travel, if I have to.
I am living disability payment to disability payment. Without a Chapter 13 payment, I could have some breathing room. I am able to save a little, but it seems that it gets eaten up by car repairs or something else like inflation, healthcare, unexpected stuff.
So, I am going to meet with my attorney to discuss the following ideas. Any feedback or recommendations for my discussion are certainly appreciated and welcome. Before I continue, I want to thank those of you who respond, and I hope you're doing well and staying safe. I always start getting to know people coming from a place of respect, wishing them all the very best, and only changing from that if I am given sufficient reason/evidence to do so (i.e. you will lose my respect really quickly by lying to me).
These ideas are listed in order of what I would like to do most to least.
Idea #1: Request my case be dismissed. Part-out and junk two of the vehicles, sell the third vehicle for I hope about $7,500. Deal with the potential judgements that may come, although I believe my VA disability is exempt from garnishment from creditors.
I don't know how long they will come after me or if they will be able to get a judgement from me since I wouldn't have any assets for them to take. The home is going into foreclosure, the vehicles would be sold, I would only have about $10,000 in savings from the proceeds of the salvaging and vehicle sale, and my disability income is hopefully protected. Could a creditor with a judgment reverse the junking/salvaging or sale of a vehicle somehow? Are there any exemptions I might have, without bankruptcy protection, for the proceeds of the vehicle sales/salvaging?
I also like this deal because I don't have to jerk around with asking my attorney to sell the vehicle (weeks of delay to get a response), who has to turn around and ask the trustee (weeks of delay to get a response), all to get a potential "no" to make the sale if they don't like how much I am selling the vehicle for, for example.
Also, with this idea I would immediately get relief from not having to pay into a plan every month.
Idea #2: Sell 2 vehicles, assuming the trustee will let me, and the trustee will agree to whatever I can get for them, then keep one vehicle if I can apply exemptions and "buy it back" with the savings I have right now (trustee approved tax return refund), then convert to Chapter 7 and be done. This might be difficult because the vehicles will now be hard to sell due to them being worth significantly less than when I estimated their value at the time of filing for bankrutpcy.
As an aside, in hindsight, I find it interesting that I simply provided the value of the vehicles to the court and they accepted it without checking the value of the vehicles themselves, of which I am aware anyway. It took a while to get my 341 hearing and I forgot to ask how the trustee verified the value of the vehicles, if they did do an independent assessment.
Idea #3: Just accept my decision and continue to pay out the plan. I don't like this because I want to be able to work and not have all my money from income go straight to the creditors, because even if I am able to work 1/4 time at a minimum wage job, from what I understand, a significant portion of that income would go directly to the trustee and paid out to the creditors, through increasing my plan payments.
I am trying to find out what to do next. I honestly think that if I weren't still grieving the loss of my wife I would have been thinking more clearly and not done a Chapter 13 plan.
I have been participating in a Chapter 13 for about 6 months into a 48 month plan in Missouri.
My only income is VA disability. I am 100% service connected.
I have several credit cards ($85K).
I surrendered my home ($350K mortgage + $50K home improvement loan) because I couldn't sell it. I couldn't sell it because of a lien from a home improvement project. I talked to a realtor and there's no way I could sell in this market to cover selling costs, pay off home improvement loan to remove lien, concessions etc., without losing more money than I have to make it work, including selling all my vehicles. I also am not able to be around the home since it's where my late spouse passed away, and the memory is just too painful, even to rent to someone else. It really sucks because the loan was a VA loan less than 3% interest fixed. We wanted to "nest" there into our sunset years. This is the reason I even considered bankruptcy.
I have multiple vehicles, all paid off, valued at about $30K altogether. I got those values from kelley blue book. What they are worth today is likely less given depreciation in the last 6 months and an observed decline in value as referenced from the same sources (KBB, etc.), not to mention several mechanical issues.
I am second guessing my choice to keep those vehicles as two are going to cost more than they are worth to repair. They are basically salvage vehicles at this point. The only reason I kept one of them is because I am living out of it. I am storing the other two. The only vehicle that is worth much is worth about $7,500 private sale.
I don't really want any vehicles as the insurance and maintenance have become a nightmare. I don't have much stuff so I can just rent a room and travel, if I have to.
I am living disability payment to disability payment. Without a Chapter 13 payment, I could have some breathing room. I am able to save a little, but it seems that it gets eaten up by car repairs or something else like inflation, healthcare, unexpected stuff.
So, I am going to meet with my attorney to discuss the following ideas. Any feedback or recommendations for my discussion are certainly appreciated and welcome. Before I continue, I want to thank those of you who respond, and I hope you're doing well and staying safe. I always start getting to know people coming from a place of respect, wishing them all the very best, and only changing from that if I am given sufficient reason/evidence to do so (i.e. you will lose my respect really quickly by lying to me).
These ideas are listed in order of what I would like to do most to least.
Idea #1: Request my case be dismissed. Part-out and junk two of the vehicles, sell the third vehicle for I hope about $7,500. Deal with the potential judgements that may come, although I believe my VA disability is exempt from garnishment from creditors.
I don't know how long they will come after me or if they will be able to get a judgement from me since I wouldn't have any assets for them to take. The home is going into foreclosure, the vehicles would be sold, I would only have about $10,000 in savings from the proceeds of the salvaging and vehicle sale, and my disability income is hopefully protected. Could a creditor with a judgment reverse the junking/salvaging or sale of a vehicle somehow? Are there any exemptions I might have, without bankruptcy protection, for the proceeds of the vehicle sales/salvaging?
I also like this deal because I don't have to jerk around with asking my attorney to sell the vehicle (weeks of delay to get a response), who has to turn around and ask the trustee (weeks of delay to get a response), all to get a potential "no" to make the sale if they don't like how much I am selling the vehicle for, for example.
Also, with this idea I would immediately get relief from not having to pay into a plan every month.
Idea #2: Sell 2 vehicles, assuming the trustee will let me, and the trustee will agree to whatever I can get for them, then keep one vehicle if I can apply exemptions and "buy it back" with the savings I have right now (trustee approved tax return refund), then convert to Chapter 7 and be done. This might be difficult because the vehicles will now be hard to sell due to them being worth significantly less than when I estimated their value at the time of filing for bankrutpcy.
As an aside, in hindsight, I find it interesting that I simply provided the value of the vehicles to the court and they accepted it without checking the value of the vehicles themselves, of which I am aware anyway. It took a while to get my 341 hearing and I forgot to ask how the trustee verified the value of the vehicles, if they did do an independent assessment.
Idea #3: Just accept my decision and continue to pay out the plan. I don't like this because I want to be able to work and not have all my money from income go straight to the creditors, because even if I am able to work 1/4 time at a minimum wage job, from what I understand, a significant portion of that income would go directly to the trustee and paid out to the creditors, through increasing my plan payments.
Bankruptcy Wizard
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