cash advances

[e123low]

Hello everybody. I stumbled upon this place when looking into ways of helping my brother along with the process of filing bankruptcy. He is very depressed and stressed out so I thought I would try and inform myself as much as possible as to assisting him along this path.

I know that for the last three years he has been taking out $300 dollars in cash advances to pay off his share of rent. I was wondering, how is the trustee going to look at this? I mean, their has to be a difference between buying $300 dollars worth of groceries and simply taking out that sum in cash.

Thanks guys.

[e123low]

Also, he has always paid cash for the majority of his bills and put most "luxury" items on his cards, i.e. tattoos, tv's, furnature, etc. He has stopped doing this for close to a year now as he cannot even barely afford to pay minimums and eat. WHere does he stand now.

[FoolAndHisMoney]

If he stopped doing this for a year he should be ok. The trustee is just looking to take non exempt assets from him. He isn't there to judge what one spent (even though some do). The only thing that could happen is a creditor could dispute some of these charges even that long ago if these luxury purchases were for a plasma tv and he was unemployed at the time of the charges since that's the proof they need to claim fraud. Since he had to take his portion of the rent from credit cards did he have a job even or decent income? If he had a reasonable income then he should be fine.

[e123low]

Thanks the the reply.

He has always made decent money, it's just he has terrible spending habbits.

The money he took out for rent every month was something he did because of strange pay periods from his job. He would pay rent with his CC and then repay the card once he had gotten paid a few days later. The only prob is that he never paid it back in full or sometimes not at all.

I cannot say that he hasnt done this for a year like he had told me, but it has been a few months i'm sure. I think a friend told him about a year ago that if he was in the situation where he was needing to file BK, that a cashiers check addressed to the landlord would look better to the judge and also he wouldnt have to pay a cash advance fee. Would any of this make a difference.

Thanks.

[keepmine]

One thing he likely needs to do is prove his expenses and a check of some sort to the landlord would help.
From what you post, he's not in danger of a substanntial abuse finding. He just really nees to quit using those cards for a few months. Find out for sure the last time he used the cards.
Most bk lawyers give a free initial consultation. Help him schedule a couple.