Another Automatic Stay Violation

[cana]

My 341 is next Friday, and I am nervous obviously. But something else came up.

I was sued by a creditor and settled, paying $360 per month to the attorneys on behalf of the cc company. But it was too much and another major creditor sued for immediate payment, which was the reason I decided to bite the bullet.

I did mention about the first lawsuit in my filings, and also mentioned I was paying $360 per month but couldn't do that any more (and showed it to my expense schedule, which does show I have about $10 per month after everything)

Now the attorneys whom I had been paying $360 per month have left a message, which is an automatic stay violation since I did include them in my filings.

I will mention that fact to my attorney's office on Monday, but will the previous attorneys spoil my Ch7? I have about $1,500 remaining against them (and included that in the filings), so how likely they are to challenge my filings?

[StaciMM]

Regardless, the automatic stay is in effect. You sai that you mentioned the 1st lawsuite & the payment in your petition. Did you list the attorneys as creditors, and also the companies that they represented? If not, you'll need to amend. (There is a page that asks about lawsuits, etc. but you'll need to still list them as a creditor.)

I'm a little confused on something. Did you list the $360/mo on your expense schedule, and after that you have $10 remaining? You may have trouble w/ a ch. 7 since it would normally discharge your debts-taking away that $360 payment. What I'm getting at is, if I understood correctly, you have $360/mo to keep paying to your creditors in a ch. 13.

As to challenging your BK, if the balances are not fraudulent or otherwise undischargeable then you shouldn't have any issues.

[cana]

The $360 payment is NOT on the expense schedule.

>Did you list the $360/mo on your expense schedule, and after that you have $10 remaining?

No.

The attorney advised me not to include that, and I had plenty other expenses to fill in (for example, medical costs and medical insurance, as well as car maintenance).

>You may have trouble w/ a ch. 7 since it would normally discharge your debts-taking away that $360 payment. What I'm getting at is, if I understood correctly, you have $360/mo to keep paying to your creditors in a ch. 13.

I don't have the money, and I did indicate that into my expense schedule.

>As to challenging your BK, if the balances are not fraudulent or otherwise undischargeable then you shouldn't have any issues

It's a cc debt and the balances are as true as I could recall. I don't know what fees they might have added after I stopped paying them, but afaik the balance should be correct.

[StaciMM]

Thanks for clarifying! I was a little concerned based on your post, but since you have an attorney I'm sure they would have made sure to list the debt in every place that it should!

Since these are credit cards that apparently had charges long enough ago to get into collections before you filed BK, don't worry. (Assuming that once you fell behind you wouldn't have been able to do charges or advances, and it would take 6-12 months to make it to the point of collections/judgements.) It would be nearly impossible for a creditor to prove that you had bad intent-that long ago-and that is really the only argument they would have.

On the other hand, if you charged/advanced $50,000 over a few cards, hid it away (so you had no explanation for where it went/how you spent it), didn't make another payment, and then filed BK a year later you MIGHT have some explaining to do but even then the credit card companies would have to prove your wrong doing.