Okay, so we finally met with a lawyer that at least seemed to know what she was talking about. We asked about the options we have as we are going to have to surrender our house. Basically, what she is suggesting is to move out of the house and get an apartment to set up a place to live and establish expenses. She suggested not paying on the three mortgages and letting the house go into foreclosure. Once in foreclosure she suggests we then file the chapter 13 (my income precludes us from Ch 7 even with the means test). She recommended keeping up on the credit card payments since we have recently used them. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to be an option as we will need the money from the mortgage payments to cover our rent and there will be nothing left to pay the credit card bills with.
Does any of this make sense? Would I just shut off the utilities when I move and keep the insurance up to date until the home is taken? That seems to be the advice of others on this site.
Her one concern with having us find an apartment now is that we will need our current credit to get a decent apartment and that if we file knowing we are going to give up the house, then the mortgage payments cannot be used for the list of expenses. Therefore we would need to know what our new rent and utilities will be for the ch 13 filing.
So my basic plan is to move out within the next 4-6 weeks, let the mortgages go into foreclosure and then file ch 13 after 90 days (due to the recent use of the credit cards). She charges $2500 for ch 13 filings unless there are extenuating circumstances that require more of an effort. This is about half the price of the first lawyer I talked to who ended up not even returning my calls when I started asking detailed questions.
jim
Does any of this make sense? Would I just shut off the utilities when I move and keep the insurance up to date until the home is taken? That seems to be the advice of others on this site.
Her one concern with having us find an apartment now is that we will need our current credit to get a decent apartment and that if we file knowing we are going to give up the house, then the mortgage payments cannot be used for the list of expenses. Therefore we would need to know what our new rent and utilities will be for the ch 13 filing.
So my basic plan is to move out within the next 4-6 weeks, let the mortgages go into foreclosure and then file ch 13 after 90 days (due to the recent use of the credit cards). She charges $2500 for ch 13 filings unless there are extenuating circumstances that require more of an effort. This is about half the price of the first lawyer I talked to who ended up not even returning my calls when I started asking detailed questions.
jim
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