Did your lawyer tell you not to pay ccs?

[weRN2deep]

I just finished reading a book 'surviving bankruptcy' and they mentioned that once you know you are planing bk you should stop paying creditors as it is like throwing money away.

Did you all follow this rule?

We need to move pre-filing time (our lease is up Dec.; want to move in Nov and file end of Nov).

If we stopped paying cc's we'd have all those 30-60 day lates. I wish we could move now but we are under lease until then. Will this hurt our chances of renting?

[kenshirley]

Yes we did. We wanted to file a chapter 7 last Oct when my wife could no longer work for medical reasons leaving us both disabled as such and on retirement from our old jobs.
We had to wait as with the old job we were above the means test.
He told us at that time is was dumb to keep paying for items we either were not planning on keeping or were unsecured.
Yes we got phone calls while we waited but nobody sued. We got offers to settle too. We did surrender our home and RV within a month or so which we planned on doing anyway.
It takes months for them to normally get a debt into court and get a judgement.

[weRN2deep]

Thanks Ken. I'm mostly concerned about the lates we would receive in the next few months causing us probs finding a new rental when it comes time to move.

[kenshirley]

We were too as most check your credit today but we got our rental about the time we quit paying.
But many rental are open today and the landlords appreciate honestly so tell them about it up front.
In most cases from reading here they don't charge any more deposits than for people with good credit.
They need renters, it's part of their business. And if you have filed you cannot do it again for a long time and that gives them a chance to collect if you do go bad on them.
Think about it.

[2manybills]

There are so many places for rent in So. Cal., you should be okay. People are trying to rent their property so they don't lose it.

[Strapped4Csh]

Where we are (CT), you can include your apartment lease in the BK as well. I'm not sure if it varies from state to state, but it may be something to consider...

[2manybills]

You can include leases here too, if you want to move earlier.

[weRN2deep]

Ok, our lawyer was awesome and we retained him. The price was right and we both felt comfortable with him. He let me ask a lot of questions before we retained and so that's nice.

Now on the 'including the lease' he mentioned that but I don't know what that means. Does it mean our landlord gets screwed somehow? We love our landlord, hate to even leave - wouldn't if it wasn't for our insane in the head neighbor (plus we need more room).
Can you please 'splain?

We are thinking of moving 1 month early, and filing as soon as we're moved. It works out well on our income too, plus gets it filed before bonus. At that point we'd only have 2 mos of lates, not stellar but our ficos are 750 ish I assume they won't tank TOO much. What about printing our CC scores & ficos now and using them as a 'conversation piece' when trying to find a place (it worked when we moved here; our current landlord did not pull cred because we had it with us).

[JRScott]

In general it is good advice.

While for most people it does not matter it is important to keep in mind that skipping payments or missed payments will cause additional hits on your credit report.

[keepmine]

Now on the 'including the lease' he mentioned that but I don't know what that means.

A lease is unsecured debt and is discharged in your bk. After the bk is concluded, you are free to pay your LL if you want to.
I'd concur with the others. Paying debts you wish to discharge is a waste of money.

[weRN2deep]

I didn't want to start a new thread so hope it is ok to re-visit this one.

I was wondering - if I was to pay say $20 to everyone for the next 2 months (instead of not paying at all)... would the marks on our credit be better than not paying anything? ie, do you still get 30 60 90 day lates if you pay something rather than nothing?

I'm just still having a hard time with the don't pay anyone thing. I have spent 20 years building good cred and although I know the BK is going to ruin it, I want to soften the kick. (or is this just a stupid idea that will have no effect at all?)

[kenshirley]

A partial payment means nothing to these people. Oh they may waive penalties if you are lucky.
That in most cases will not stop the interest rates from soaring either.
If you know you have to file and such you might as well get it over with.
It will not matter that you paid or did not pay because after you get discharged it's just going to show the account as included in the BK.
So let me ask you, what difference does that make to you?
The major factor here is that you will have a BK on your record for 10 years.

[weRN2deep]

If you know you have to file and such you might as well get it over with.

The timing on our filing has to do with a sudden drop in income for dh, which, if filed appropriately will keep us under the median but if we file now will show more income.

I was just wondering if they would still show 30 60 day lates if you paid, but sounds like paying less than owed will not deter anything. thanks.

[falken]

I was wondering - if I was to pay say $20 to everyone for the next 2 months (instead of not paying at all)... would the marks on our credit be better than not paying anything? ie, do you still get 30 60 90 day lates if you pay something rather than nothing?

I'm just still having a hard time with the don't pay anyone thing. I have spent 20 years building good cred and although I know the BK is going to ruin it, I want to soften the kick. (or is this just a stupid idea that will have no effect at all?)

If your minimum payment is $100 and you send $99.99, as far as they are concerned you did not pay. You are still late, reported to credit reporting agencies, charges late fees, have your interest rate increased, collection calls, etc.

You may feel that $20 is better than nothing, but not to them. All or nothing as you might say.

[kenshirley]

The timing on our filing has to do with a sudden drop in income for dh, which, if filed appropriately will keep us under the median but if we file now will show more income.

I was just wondering if they would still show 30 60 day lates if you paid, but sounds like paying less than owed will not deter anything. thanks.

We waited for 6 months to file to qualify for chapter 7. Our attorney told us to stop paying right away.