Job Status and so Frantic before filing....Chapter 13

[hinky]

Hello all. I have been reading your posts on here and it does help to know others are in the same boat. I have a few questions that I wanted to ask to see if anyone can help. I recently visited an attorney about filing Chapter 13. I will be setting up an appointment to begin filing at the end of next week. In the meantime, I have some issues that concern me about filing. One is that my husband and I have about Six small payday loans that are preventing us from having any sort of money as they are automatically taken out of our bank and my husband's check is direct deposit so it gets taken out before we have the chance to take out the money for other bills due. Anyone have experience on what to do here? Is a stop payment possible? And can those be included in a Chapter 13 filing. Also, I am finding that I am going to have to quit my job in the next few weeks as I am about to lose my insurance on my car, as well as my car itself, which is a leased vehicle and a 535 dollar payment each month. Am I able to include my car in the Chapter 13 and surrender the vehicle without any further penalites or charges. I understand that would be giving the car up and don't mind doing so. Another issue is that this will force me to give up my job which I only make about 1200 a month and my husband is the main breadwinner and will have the income from his job. Will this affect my Chapter 13 filing with me not working causing any sort of issue with the courts that one spouse is not bringing in any income. I know there are alot of questions here, but I have so many questions about this and have not been able to reach my attorney and won't see her until next week and just wondered if anyone has any experience or knowledge in this area. Any help is greatly appreciated!!

[bkbiker]

Hi Hinky,

I sorry for you current situation, I do hope life improves for you,

I would advise you to take a step back and look the bigger picture before you file chapter 13, there is no hurry on you to file sooooooooooooo soon. Do not let your attorney pressure you into filing!

How much debt do you have?
Do you own a house?
Do you any judgments against you?
Will you be working again?
Can you file chapter 7? And why not?

Please think about doing some pre bankruptcy planning, that will make your life so much easier as you go through your plan. Read some or the threads here.

Open a new bank account now that you have no other affiliations with, transfer your direct pay there.

When you become absolutely sure that you will be filing chapter 13, than stop paying all your unsecured creditors, including the pay day loans, take the next 3 -6 months to get ready to serve your time in debtors’ prison (3 – 5 years)

Good luck,
bkbiker

I borrowed this from Minny, I hope minny doesn’t mind
“My suggestions are from "personal experience" and research only. Do not consider this as legal advice. Each bankruptcy case is different

[Jman30]

bkbiker is 100% correct, as usual.

Do as much research as you can. Write down all questions on a piece of paper and bring it when you meet with your attorney. They will answer your questions but they won't proactively offer up information since they don't know how educated you are or what your concerns are.

I found that writing down questions before I met kept me on track and stopped the lawyer from pressuring me out of his office quick to get to his next appointment. Having my questions written down made sure that I covered everythng I wanted to cover, rather than just what he wanted to cover.

[hinky]

Thank you both for your replies....your suggestions help get me going in the right direction and I will definitely write down my questions so that I will be prepared when I meet with my attorney again on June 22. One more question that I thought of....is it a good idea for both me and my husband to open up a joint account at another bank and still be able to keep our current account that we have. His military pay goes as a direct deposit, while his civilian pay is a paper check along with my check. It's not a good idea for us to disturb the direct deposit, as everyone that has been in the military knows, it can be a tedious process to change information on your LES. Any anyone that has more suggestion I am open to hear them!! Thanks again and take care everyone!!

[Jman30]

hinky, why would you want to open another account? Do you mean as a savings account to stash away money when possible?

And I know how hard it is change information on your LES. I was in the Army for 8 years. Changing anything on your personnel file can take forever. I hope your husband was not part of the recent VA theft....?

[bobby125]

hinky, I feel for you and your situation. I am by no means an expert, but I did want to offer my .02 cents....

If you are about to lose your job, you may want to wait on filing because they will look at your last 6 months paystubs. If you can do this (maybe a cash advance off a credit card, or a payday loan?) it would be worth it in the long run, because your payment would be lower

I know it is insane because you know you will no longer have your job, but they will calculate your payment for the next 5 years or so as if you would have your job!

As far as the car, yeah if it is $550 a month and you dont want it, then giving it up sounds like a good thing.

All is just my opinion, Ill try and read over the post again to make sure I did not misinterpert anything. We are all here to get advice from one another, so feel free to post back or write anything, you will not get "shamed" here.

Thanks

[bobby125]

oh yes, btw bkbiker is correct, I would step back, take a deep breath and make sure chapter 13 is right for you. also, I would try and keep the car, even if you dont make the payments, while you are out of your job. That way the calculation would read negative $550 on the car, and $0 on the income, but that is a decision to make after you decide to file.

[anonymuse]

And they aren't going to confirm a plan unless you show that you have the ability to pay back during a ch 13 so you'll need to have a new job.

[hinky]

hey guys thanks for all the info....as far as the job income, if my husband is still showing proof of income, do i still need to have a job? Right now that is not a possibility since he needs our car for a full time job and he has two part time jobs. Also, someone mentioned pay day loans and thats what got us in trouble in the first place. We got behind on bills last October and started taking those out to get us back on track and it ended up taking all of our money. The reason we want to get a new bank account is so that they will not have information on our new account and can't take out the payments. I want to file on these. As far as a chapter 13 versus 7...well we filed chapter 7 five years ago so we are not eligible to file anything but 13 and we have decided to give up our car because the payment is so high. I was able to get my filing date up to this Tuesday so that will help. I don't think my income will have that much bearing on not being able to pay the montly fee since with my income it was only estimated to be about 250 a month for the amount of debt that me and my husband owe. This is our only way to get the payments to stop doubling though due to late fees and overlimit charges. I can honestly say we didn't learn much when we filed five years ago at age 22. But if anything, I have realized how this time it only takes a matter of a few months to get back into trouble. We did really well until this past winter and then it went downhill from there. I just know that the first time around filing chapter 7 I really was naive and didn't understand what we were doing as much as I do now. Chapter 13 seems to have alot more with it also and I am still taking in all of the information and appreciate ya'll greatly for your info!! Take care everyone