You know you're poor when....

[yomama]

your attorney sets your household belongings even though you know it's probably only worth half that much...and he values your car at $3000. I looked it up on the internet and it's barely worth $1000. I mentioned these things, and also told him about our daughter's bank CD that was in both my husband's name and our daughter's name up until about two months ago. He said to report and don't worry, it's covered with the exemptions. Same thing for the household goods and car. I sure hope he's right because we're signing to this stuff. He put our household goods at $5000, but there's no way it's worth that much. I know my husband listed the things, but I think the lawyer gave it all a value in the end. I guess he wants us to think we aren't as poor as what we really are. I KNOW we're poor no matter what he says. As long as those things are covered by the exemption amounts in each category, I guess it's okay what he said, huh? Who knows, maybe he's thinking if he puts too low of a value on things, the trustee would get suspicious or something.

[lrprn]

your attorney sets your household belongings even though you know it's probably only worth half that much...and he values your car at $3000. I looked it up on the internet and it's barely worth $1000. I mentioned these things, and also told him about our daughter's bank CD that was in both my husband's name and our daughter's name up until about two months ago. He said to report and don't worry, it's covered with the exemptions. Same thing for the household goods and car. I sure hope he's right because we're signing to this stuff. He put our household goods at $5000, but there's no way it's worth that much. I know my husband listed the things, but I think the lawyer gave it all a value in the end. I guess he wants us to think we aren't as poor as what we really are. I KNOW we're poor no matter what he says. As long as those things are covered by the exemption amounts in each category, I guess it's okay what he said, huh? Who knows, maybe he's thinking if he puts too low of a value on things, the trustee would get suspicious or something.

For your own peace of mind, do ask your attorney how he arrived at those figures.

The average household's furniture and household goods resale value is typically around $3,000. Also you can estimate your car's value as a used car yourself at www.edmunds.com - put in the info that matches your car then average the three prices (be sure to subtract any damage or repairs needed as well). Your lawyer may be trying to ensure your income vs. expenditures figures come out on the Means Test so you'll be well below the level that would push you into a Ch 13, but only he can say for sure. He also may be using figures he knows your trustee will accept as standard for your area as well. Don't assume - it's your names you are signing to the forms with these figures on them. If you have concerns, ask!

[SinkingFast]

It might be common practice in your area to value things so high.

I Googled BK attnys in PA and found one in the Western Filing District. I looked at one of the most recent cases he's filed. A No Asset Ch 7 for a couple. That attny valued the couple's household goods at $2500, Clothes at $1000, and jewelry at $2500. Their total personal property, including bank accts came to $8100. The attny was applying Federal Exemptions to that couple's case.

I don't know what part of PA you're living in, and if you own your home or not, but your attny could be using values that are appropriate for your area. What your Court is used to seeing.

[yomama]

For your own peace of mind, do ask your attorney how he arrived at those figures.

The average household's furniture and household goods resale value is typically around $3,000. Also you can estimate your car's value as a used car yourself at www.edmunds.com - put in the info that matches your car then average the three prices (be sure to subtract any damage or repairs needed as well). Your lawyer may be trying to ensure your income vs. expenditures figures come out on the Means Test so you'll be well below the level that would push you into a Ch 13, but only he can say for sure. He also may be using figures he knows your trustee will accept as standard for your area as well. Don't assume - it's your names you are signing to the forms with these figures on them. If you have concerns, ask!

I think he already filed, but not sure. I was going to just trust our attorney knows what he's doing because we don't. lol I know that he said we could always change things down the line if need be. I don't know if $5000 for household goods is typical for our area or not, but I know that our goods aren't worth that much. I'd estimate half of that probably. We really don't own that much and what we do own isn't new. Our couch is up on cinder blocks because the legs are broken off, so I can't imagine that's worth too much, and I know the other things aren't worth a whole lot, although more than the couch, that's for sure.

I'm kind of confused where you said, "Your lawyer may be trying to ensure your income vs. expenditures figures come out on the Means Test so you'll be well below the level that would push you into a Ch 13, but only he can say for sure." I don't understand how his upping the numbers would help us, unless I misunderstood you. I wish I knew what is customary for this area.

[SinkingFast]

I **think** maybe Lrprn was referring to debt to assets ratio.

If you are trying to discharge in excess of $100K in unsecured debt and you have little in the way of assets, that's a red flag for the UST's office.

So maybe your attny is trying to make it look, on paper at least, like you have more assets. Your attny may be thinking you've got the Exemptions available, may as well use your available Exemptions to make you look like you're worth more.

If you want to see what's typical for your area, you can register on PACER, get a User ID and Password, and research filings by other attnys in your area.

http://www.bankruptcyforum.com/showthread.php?t=1011

[yomama]

It might be common practice in your area to value things so high.

I Googled BK attnys in PA and found one in the Western Filing District. I looked at one of the most recent cases he's filed. A No Asset Ch 7 for a couple. That attny valued the couple's household goods at $2500, Clothes at $1000, and jewelry at $2500. Their total personal property, including bank accts came to $8100. The attny was applying Federal Exemptions to that couple's case.

I don't know what part of PA you're living in, and if you own your home or not, but your attny could be using values that are appropriate for your area. What your Court is used to seeing.

I don't know if it's common practice or not to value things so high. You'd think that it would be below other places. I don't think household incomes in this area are very high compared to other parts of the country, but then again, I don't know what everyone else makes either. Two people working in this area have a combined income of about $30,000. I'm not working right now and my husband doesn't even make $20,000. We certainly can't afford much in the way of household goods.

Oh, in case you were wondering, we're in the Middle District. How did you look up that information that you did about a recently filed case in the Western District? You just typed in "bankruptcy attorneys..."? Then the case came up, or what? I wish I could see something for our area, but then again, even if I would, it doesn't necessarily mean that their situation is like ours. It might say that they have that much for household goods, but maybe they make a lot more money than we do. How do we know that the $5000 is exempt? Where on the net could I look that up? It goes by state, right? So even though $5000 might not be the state average, do attorneys "work with the figures" to make them fit into the ones in the area so as not to raise questions? Still, I'd think that if our household goods are only worth say $2000 or $3000, why would we have to "lie" and say that they're worth $5000 when I know they probably aren't. I don't think we could sell them for that much if we'd sell everything down to the last little thing.

If what he's reporting in the papers throws us into a chapter 13, I would be really upset, because we are always scraping for money and we wouldn't be able to afford to pay any creditors. When we did a monthly expenses estimate, we came out to only a couple dollars to the good, like $2.50 or something like that. That was after we made changes. When we had met with our attorney the first time, I thought we all agreed that we didn't have any money left over at the end of the month, yet when we got the papers from the attorney, it was showing a $300 to the good each month, which I know isn't the case. So my husband and I went over our expenses more thoroughly and it came out to that $2.50. Actually, we're probably in the negative every month because if we had to take either of our cars to the garage right now, we wouldn't have the money. We don't have medical/dental insurance and can't afford to go to the doctor. We can't afford much of anything really. We pay the bills and that's it. Even then, we have trouble keeping up. Oh, and I'm not sure which exemptions, federal or state, our attorney is applying in our case; he didn't really say. Btw, we don't own and we don't rent. We live in a house owned by my parents and they aren't charging us rent because they know we can't afford it. It's pathetic that we're so poor we can barely pay our bills even with no rent or mortgage payment.

[SinkingFast]

I went back in your old posts and saw you live in PA. Googled BK attnys, found a name, saw he practiced in the Western District. Then I logged into PACER, went to Western District of PA, and searched for cases by the attny's name. Picked a recent couple he'd filed. It turned out to be a No Asset Ch 7. I think all told, that search cost $3 or $4.

[SinkingFast]

Whether you pay auto repair bills or not, you need to budget something for them when they do come up. Same for medical and dental bills. Clothes too. Even though you haven't recently bought them doesn't mean you won't have the expense at some point.

That's like setting aside so much each month for auto insurance when it comes due. You pay the bill in October. You know it's coming again the next April so you save some $$'s each month for when the bill comes again.

Just because you aren't physically spending it now does not mean your Schedule J should not show an allotted amount for those things.

[yomama]

I **think** maybe Lrprn was referring to debt to assets ratio.

If you are trying to discharge in excess of $100K in unsecured debt and you have little in the way of assets, that's a red flag for the UST's office.

So maybe your attny is trying to make it look, on paper at least, like you have more assets. Your attny may be thinking you've got the Exemptions available, may as well use your available Exemptions to make you look like you're worth more.

If you want to see what's typical for your area, you can register on PACER, get a User ID and Password, and research filings by other attnys in your area.

http://www.bankruptcyforum.com/showthread.php?t=1011

We aren't trying to discharge more than $100K. We're trying to discharge about $70,000. We owe an additional $20,000 on top of that due to student loans that my husband had taken out. So we're about $90,000 in debt with not quite a $20,000/yr income.

I don't know if it's good or bad that my husband has a little bit of a retirement fund that he just started having given to him month by month a few months ago. That ups our income $400/mo, but he had to aake it out so we could pay our bills. Up until then it had just be sitting there.

My car is paid off. My husband still owes about $9000 on his car and would like to continue making payments on it to keep it.

If we have a big debt compared to income, maybe then that's why our lawyer made some figures higher than they actually are. Like you said, maybe it would raise a red flag otherwise. I really hate to question him about all this now that I'm thinking more about it because I really do trust that he has our best interests in mind. I was surprised when our total assets came out being as much as they are...almost $30,000. We don't have a savings, only a swish (in and out just as fast) checking account, a life insurance policy on each of us, he valued our cars at $13,000, and I guess I must not be thinking of everything because it doesn't seem like we have assets of $30,000. Our total liabilies come up to about $102,000. Maybe the attorney is trying not to raise any red flags, but on the other hand, I don't want to it throw us in the other direction that we have to pay something we can't afford to. Oh, how I wish we hadn't ever gotten started with the credit cards in the first place!

I would register with PACER but don't know how I'd pay for the pages since we hardly have money now. I know it's only what 8 cents a page right? But I can imagine how quickly it would add up with me looking around. How does a person pay for that anyway? Do they send you a bill? I hope you dont' have to pay with a credit card or for sure I wouldn't do it. I don't want to use them anymore. I hope we learned from our mistakes. I also hope that our debts will be discharged. This is kind of nerve-wracking.

[yomama]

I went back in your old posts and saw you live in PA. Googled BK attnys, found a name, saw he practiced in the Western District. Then I logged into PACER, went to Western District of PA, and searched for cases by the attny's name. Picked a recent couple he'd filed. It turned out to be a No Asset Ch 7. I think all told, that search cost $3 or $4.

Oh heck, I didn't want you to get more in debt though because of me.

[yomama]

Whether you pay auto repair bills or not, you need to budget something for them when they do come up. Same for medical and dental bills. Clothes too. Even though you haven't recently bought them doesn't mean you won't have the expense at some point.

That's like setting aside so much each month for auto insurance when it comes due. You pay the bill in October. You know it's coming again the next April so you save some $$'s each month for when the bill comes again.

Just because you aren't physically spending it now does not mean your Schedule J should not show an allotted amount for those things.

I'll have to show this to my husband. We've never lived on a budget and we ought to do that. I know we don't have much but surely we can set aside a dollar or two a month.