How long did you wait to file BK and without paying creditors and why?

[peacesoon]

Just curious to see other situations. We have reasons for delaying BK(saving some money up, some income may come in from a lawsuit, job may not be stable, etc) but cannot afford to pay CC's at this time as it's taking us over our income and leaves us deficient every month. So, we stopped paying the CC just this month. I honestly wish we would have filed last year(instead of paying minimum balances for a year) when we lost our house and we were laid off for awhile. I thought we might be able to make it work and I could get a job(which I haven't been able to). Plus, I had a nervous breakdown so my mind hasn't been very clear for awhile.

I see some on here not pay their debt and then file a significant time later. How long did you wait without paying? Just wondering what your situation is and why you waited?

Thanks.

[keepmine]

I went into default with the May billing cycle in 05 and filed the first week of Oct. 05. I'd had some cash advances in Nov. and Dec. of 04 that I wanted to age. I'd have likely waited longer but, I had to file prior to the Oct.17th effective date for bk reform.
Never got sued. Just the phone calls and a few shoeboxs full of dunning letters.
My advice is, file when the time is right for you. Do this on your terms.

[DeadManCrawling]

Stopped paying January 2007.

Have not yet filed.

We are waiting for some medical stuff, waiting to get out of our house, which is headed to a lengthy, defended foreclosure.

Once the foreclosure is done in a year or two we will have purchased a new home with cash we are saving. At that time we will look at where we are in terms of medical progress and file once we are on the better side of these few things.

[peacesoon]

In the mean time, What about money in the bank? Can they touch this? Is there a law for exemptions by state(non bankruptcy). I hate to pull it out and raise a flag during BK time(though this amount would be exempt). Thanks for asking my questions.

[peacesoon]

We also have some medical stuff pending too..

Stopped paying January 2007.

Have not yet filed.

We are waiting for some medical stuff, waiting to get out of our house, which is headed to a lengthy, defended foreclosure.

Once the foreclosure is done in a year or two we will have purchased a new home with cash we are saving. At that time we will look at where we are in terms of medical progress and file once we are on the better side of these few things.

Our insurance hasn't paid on some claims which is frustrating. They are claiming it's due to a pre-x condition my son has(but it's not) so I am fighting with them. It's over 6k in surgery costs. UGH!

What have your CC sent to you during this time frame and how much to you owe unsecured(if you do not mind me asking)? Do you keep some $ in the bank? I've read about some Bank holds or levys and it's terrifying me.

[keepmine]

Nobody is going to levy your bank account unless they sue you and win. You got miles to go before that happens.

[peacesoon]

Good to know!..

Nobody is going to levy your bank account unless they sue you and win. You got miles to go before that happens.

Thanks. I was scared because I read about some one hear that had a WF account that they put a hold on their account and they didn't have accounts with them. I do not have Wells Fargo but Fifth Third - just transferred my account to BOA because Fifth Third is out of state for us now.

Thanks for answering.

[DeadManCrawling]

We have about 90-100k in unsecured, our only secured debt is our home.

One CC sued and got a judgement against my wife but has been unable to act on it, since she has no accounts in her name and is not working. The amount was $1400 or so.

We do have some money in the bank, and will have enough in a few months to pay cash for a new house, much smaller and suited to our current finances. It will be nice to have it paid off from the beginning.

We get letters and calls from junk collectors all the time, but it really gets easier as time goes on.

Lately I have been toying with the idea of nailing a bunch of em on collection violations to pad our income even more. It's pretty simple if you know the law, and I can see the money adding up over time, but it is a LOT of work and hassle, too.

[jennordhavn]

Most of my credit cards were 4+ years old when I filed. They were all small balances and at some point I stopped paying because I just couldn't afford the unsecured debt anymore. I was hoping that I would be able to pay eventually and no one sued so I just waited. With some forced moves, dental bills, unpaid utilities, underemployment for my DH, and an auto repo, I finally went ahead and filed because I knew there was no way I could ever "catch up."

[liz417]

I stopped paying my cc's in May '08 and all my cards had very high balance (74k total cc debt), never sued. Just filed a couple of days ago.

[lala]

When did calls start

Hi, if you stopped paying cards in May 08, when did calls start and how often did you get them? We have 75K in CC debt. Talking to lawyers next week. I'm nervous about stopping payments, but we can't make payments without incurring more debt (hence the whole problem). Would like to have couple months with no charges before we file.

[peacesoon]

Hi Liz...

I stopped paying my cc's in May '08 and all my cards had very high balance (74k total cc debt), never sued. Just filed a couple of days ago.

Thanks for replying. May I ask what CC companies? We have the majority of our debt with Citibank(27k, 24k) and Chase(9k, 9k) and then smaller credit cards with balances and medical debt. I am still contemplating calling them to see if they will do hardship with us so we can pay smaller payments over time. I am just scared I guess it can't hurt to try except that we might be throwing more money away.

Thanks for your input. I hope your BK proceeding goes smoothly!

[Trixie007]

We stopped making minimum payments last year - May to July I guess, depending on the card. I'm not sure what our balances are up to now, I'm guessing 180k - No lawsuits yet. We're filing on Friday.

[damooster]

Thanks for replying. May I ask what CC companies? We have the majority of our debt with Citibank(27k, 24k) and Chase(9k, 9k) and then smaller credit cards with balances and medical debt. I am still contemplating calling them to see if they will do hardship with us so we can pay smaller payments over time. I am just scared I guess it can't hurt to try except that we might be throwing more money away.

Thanks for your input. I hope your BK proceeding goes smoothly!

Citibank sued me for a $1k credit card balance. I have a court date for it this month, but I'll be filing before then. I last paid them about 8 months ago.

[eddiep]

We stopped paying in sept - oct 08, still have not filed. we are waiting for our loan modification documents to be completed because we will not be able to communicate with bank once we file. We can not file in June because 401k loan plus current income puts us over median, so shooting for July. We have been sued so we are in a rush now! We had 150k unsecured back in feb, not sure of current balance, the interest adds up quickly!