Question about marital status

[silverlotus]

I found out I'm not the only one who may be filing for BK. I kinda spilled to a friend in a moment of stress and she admitted she was thinking of filing too because of medical bills and some CC's. Small world.

So anyway, she's been living with her boyfriend for years. They have some joint accounts, some separate accounts. They had planned on getting married this March and I think she said she wanted to file in the summer as she's paying some money to creditors she can afford and using the CC's some (until I told her to stop all that, lol) and letting others go. She needs to file jointly with him but is worried if a lawsuit comes up before the wedding she won't have that option and will lose stuff (Colorado allows you to double your exemptions when filing jointly) and end up responsible for the joint accounts she has with him as well as not getting her own discharged.

I've been helping her plan this wedding for a year and it would really suck if she had to get a quickie wedding at the courthouse instead of the wedding she wants on the date they want. Her wedding isn't expensive by the way. Less than $600.

So I guess my vague question is, what is she to do and she wants to know if it'll still be ok to file married jointly if she gets married anytime before she files. I would assume so since the marriage contract took place before the BK contract but I'm hardly an expert. She's also hesitant to explain this to a lawyer because she thinks it might hurt her case because it'd look like a deliberate plan to help them in BK. It wasn't, but I don't think she can prove that.

[rilbrianne]

I think they should wait until they are married. If a lawsuit does come against them, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but everything stops once they file and nothing can be collected at all. It depends on how recent this creditor has threatened a law suit and how much she owes. It usually takes a few months for them to actually do anything. Paperwork, hiring a lawyer, etc. And they may not find it worth the trouble if the amount owed is less than the costs of the above.

[lrprn]

In the situation you describe with mixed debts between the two of them, it makes more sense to file after they are married. They can file as a married couple any time after their marriage license is signed and witnessed, then filed with the state.