Medical and dental work prior to filing

[gava1910]

So I have been putting off a thyroid ultrasound and my son who is 5 needs some extensive dental work done, for which he already has a treatment plan and appointments set. About $2500 worth. We have a care credit card that I was going to use, but now that we are planning to file would this be considered fraudulous? My lawyer doesn't think it will be a problem but it makes me nervous. I don't want to do anything wrong or rip people off, but he has cavities that are causing him pain we were thinking of filing in may or june

[LadyInTheRed]

Get your kid's teeth fixed! And get that ultrasound too.

The worse that could happen is that the creditor files a petition to have the debt excluded from discharge and wins, in which case you would have to pay back that debt. Because the debt is not incurred for a luxury, it is not presumed to be non-dischargeable. So, the creditor has to prove that you incurred the expense without the intent to pay. They are very unlikely to bother for $2500.

[woeisme]

I used a care credit line to pay for ~$1500 worth of dental work prior to filing. I knew my financial situation was dire but hadn't decided 100% to file yet, but within about a month or so after using the card finally saw the writing on the wall. It took another month or two to set up appointments with attorneys and actually file, so I think I was about 90 days past the last use of a credit card but no one objected and it wasn't an issue. I actually wish I'd done some more pre-petition planning, like buying a reliable vehicle instead of praying my paid off rust-buckets made it the whole 5 years (they didn't, it was a nightmare).