Any suggestions for me

[so_far_in_debt]

Spartan, thanks for the advice. I keep trying to think of a way out of this mess. I looked up a couple of places today that buy land contracts. Not sure what I can get out of it. My first thought is to pay off the truck and try to settle with the credit card companies, but not sure if there is enough money to do that. If I could do those 2 things I may be able to pay the house payment and avoid BK.

[Spartan]

Good luck. Keep us updated as to how it works out.

Feel free to use the forum as sounding board for anything.

[so_far_in_debt]

Thanks Spartan, I will give an update after meeting with my attorney on Thursday. If nothing else it may help someone else. I am planning on trying to make at least 2 more appointments with other attorneys.

[so_far_in_debt]

Seen my first lawyer today

Well I had my first appointment with a lawyer today. The first thing I have to say is that I will definately consult with at least one more. I think she was knowledgable but I found the office staff to be quite unfriendly. The other thing that I did not like was that she seemed to be judgemental. But here is what I can remember from our conversation.

I have a boat that I am paying payments on that was part of a divorce. She said that the debt would be dischargable in BK but that my ex would then have the right to sue me for the money. That does not make sense to me, especially since the loan is in his name and I am just making the payments to the bank.

Student Loan: She said that the student loan would be paid payments during the BK at an amount similar to what other creditors are getting until the BK is discharged and then I would have to make the regular payments once the BK is discharged. One of my concerns with this is that the interest would really be building up over a 5 year timeframe. This could end up being a substantial amount.

Land Contract: She said that it will not matter if I file chapter 13 or 7 it will end up being liquidated to pay creditors. I asked if I could sell it prior to filing and she said yes as long as I do not buy luxuary items with it and to keep receipts of what I spend the money on. I can exempt 10,000 of it.

Preferential Treatment: I asked her about this because I have heard so much about it on this site. She said that what the trustee will look for is if family and friends were paid money that they we owed while other creditors got nothing. The other area she talked about was balance transfers. The trustee will look at those because it is felt that it can be unfair to a creditor to take a hit when a debtor is doing balance transfers. She also said that the other big thing they look for is cash advances on credit cards and what that money was used for. So basically her advice was do not pay family and friends before creditors and balance transfers will be scrutinized to ensure fairness with cc companies.

Hope this information is helpful to someone.

PS is there a spell check and if so where is it?

[HHM]

That does not make sense to me, especially since the loan is in his name and I am just making the payments to the bank.

If it is part of the Divorce Decree that you make these payments, then she is correct.

Everything else she says is pretty much right on.

[so_far_in_debt]

HMM I do not want the boat debt to be discharged. I feel obligated to pay it as it was part of the divorce agreement. Made a phone call tonight to try and sell it and I hope that happens and then I will have that worry off my shoulders. If not I guess the ex can have the boat back and take over the payments, just hate to do that as I know he is scraping by due to lack of construction work here in chilly Michigan this winter.

[lrprn]

PS is there a spell check and if so where is it?

In the forum with a post open, when you click the "Quote" button on the lower right, the message pane opens to type in your response. Look in the upper right corner - you'll see a checkmark with ABC above it - that's your spell check. You need to download a small Internet-spell check application called ieSpell to use it though. When you click the ABC checkmark, a dialog box will open telling you to click OK to download ieSpell. Good luck - let us know how it works for you

[HHM]

Or you can download toolbar.google.com

It has several features, one is a spell check that will spell check any text box on any website you visit.