Hi everyone. This is my first post here. I've been reading through the forum and searching for answer and thought I'd introduce myself. I Have a couple questions as well that I'm sure our answered dozens of times already but I didn't find them easily while searching.
I'm 29 years old and have been considering chapter 7 for several years now. My wife and I rent our apartment and no other real assets. I plan on filing by myself (most likely pro se) to discharge my debt which is mostly unsecured credit card debt from when I was in college and when we first go married. Some of it is within a couple years of the statue of limitation and most of those are for only around $1k each but, I have been sued a few times by creditor and have a couple judgments against me, including one for over $5k which I have no ability to pay back.
I plan to file alone because, while my wife did have credit problems as well in college, they were minor and she has now begun rebuilding her credit. Also, we are hoping to start a family soon and would like to be about to get a mortgage within the next couple years.
So here are my questions.
1) If I file alone, when I fill out schedule's I and J I use the joint figures, including my wife's income and expenses we share, correct? Our combined income is just shy of the median income for our area so I'm not to worried about the means test - but I just wanted to confirm how the number are calculated when I file alone - even though I'm married.
2) We have two cars that we need to keep. Both are Hyundais and both are upside down loans. The one I drive is in my name. The loan for the car she drives is in BOTH of our names (and my name is on the registration.) Since my name is on her car, is that going to present any sort of problem? This kind of ties in with question one I suppose. Will it look like *I* own two cars - or, will it make sense to the court that *we* own two cars but *I'm* filing alone?
I'm sure I'll have other questions and I look forward to learning more and hopefully making some new friends in this forum. I'm going to buy the latest NOLO book this weekend when I get paid (I actually have the pre-2005 version --- like I said, I've been thinking about doing this for a while)
I'm 29 years old and have been considering chapter 7 for several years now. My wife and I rent our apartment and no other real assets. I plan on filing by myself (most likely pro se) to discharge my debt which is mostly unsecured credit card debt from when I was in college and when we first go married. Some of it is within a couple years of the statue of limitation and most of those are for only around $1k each but, I have been sued a few times by creditor and have a couple judgments against me, including one for over $5k which I have no ability to pay back.
I plan to file alone because, while my wife did have credit problems as well in college, they were minor and she has now begun rebuilding her credit. Also, we are hoping to start a family soon and would like to be about to get a mortgage within the next couple years.
So here are my questions.
1) If I file alone, when I fill out schedule's I and J I use the joint figures, including my wife's income and expenses we share, correct? Our combined income is just shy of the median income for our area so I'm not to worried about the means test - but I just wanted to confirm how the number are calculated when I file alone - even though I'm married.
2) We have two cars that we need to keep. Both are Hyundais and both are upside down loans. The one I drive is in my name. The loan for the car she drives is in BOTH of our names (and my name is on the registration.) Since my name is on her car, is that going to present any sort of problem? This kind of ties in with question one I suppose. Will it look like *I* own two cars - or, will it make sense to the court that *we* own two cars but *I'm* filing alone?
I'm sure I'll have other questions and I look forward to learning more and hopefully making some new friends in this forum. I'm going to buy the latest NOLO book this weekend when I get paid (I actually have the pre-2005 version --- like I said, I've been thinking about doing this for a while)
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