cant do 7 or 13 ???

[dryyou]

We retained a lawer dec. of 2008. he looked at our debts and told us if we keep our car and truck loan we should be able to do a chapter 7, but we had to wait untill we had no charges on any credit cards for 6 months before we filed. we went back to our attorny in may, now he tells us because of our tax return and my wifes pay at the end of the year, ( she gets 1 check for the time shes off in the summer, works for school distric)that counts as income, so he tells us we make to much to claim chapter 7 and dont make enough to make a payment for chapter 13. what sucks is the lawyer that told us we could claim chapter 7 could not even face us to tell us, he had one of the other attornys do that. i thought bankruptcy was for that 1 time you got in trouble.... not happy any thoughts??

[lrprn]

Typically most families have shifting incomes, payments, and living expenses over time. You've gotten caught up in how lawyers have to interpret the figures plugged into the required Means Test to make a first pass to determine which chapter you can file.

If your income or expenses shift just a bit over the six-month lookback or if you have financial transactions that trip a filing red flag (recent large charges for non-essential items, recent balance transfers, insider transfers of cash or assets, etc), then that can make filing Ch 7 harder, even impossible. The only solution is to wait for the offending 'red flag' to drop out of the six-month lookback or the typical timeframes that trustees examine your financial records for abuse or fraud.

Frankly, if your Means Test and Schedules calculations are coming out now so "you can't file a 7 and don't have enough to support a 13", that doesn't make a lot of sense. Either your Means Test and Schedules show you have sufficient disposable income to support a 13 and so your creditors will get what they would get if you filed Ch 7 (typically about $120-150/month minimum showing on the Means Test and/or Schedule I minus J), or you show less disposable income than that and can file a 7. Are you near or over the median income for your state and family size?

[jribe]

i think you need to consult with another attorney. Your current attorney's response makes no sense at all.

You would qualify for one of them! It sounds like you could probably still file for the 7 - you're just over the median income. That happens all the time. As long as you have enough allowable expenses (ones that wouldn't be considered luxury that the trustee would dispute) you could still file a 7 - even if you're over the median income.

If you don't have enough to pay into a 13- you don't do a 13.

Have you done a means test on your own? Google one, such as legal consumer's- and plug in your numbers.

It tells you at the bottom what projected ch 13 payment would be (or if you'd be negative)

good luck

[dryyou]

were about 25,000.00 over median income and the means test showed we are minus 450.00 a month. i'll try doing the means test on our own