How long can this last?

[neverending]

I filed for Chapter 7 on November 30th 2009. The UST filed a motion for presumption of abuse and totality of circumstances and a hearing was set in March. At the hearing the UST said that a few details needed clarification and the judge said he would set a date for June or July. The actual court date was scheduled for late Aug. I just found out that the UST has gotten an extension and the new court date is in November.

Will this ever end? Can the UST keep getting extensions?

[debthelper]

Re: How long can this last?

Yeah it can last up to a year while they make sure everything is in order. It doesn't really matter though, the creditors can't do anything to you because you are in the process of going through bankruptcy. The only way it would matter is if you expect to come into money soon, you might not be able to finalize your bankruptcy then.

[neverending]

LOL-I doubt we'll win the lottery or have a huge inheritance. My main concern is that we'll be forced into a Chapter 13 and my husband's income is straight commission. It's already stressful not knowing month to month if we'll have enough to cover the basics, I don't want the stress of a set monthly payment that we won't be able to cover. We currently set aside any overage from one month to cover shortfalls in future months.

Quite a bit of the debt is from a failed business. We are over the 50% threshold (52%) but the UST may disallow some of the expense. We were under the median income when we filed but we are now above it. I feel like the UST is dragging this out so that they can claim that although we were bankrupt when we filed, we aren't now so we can fund a 13. We are still running about $600 negative monthly. Which is better than the $5800 negative monthly a year ago.

[angles]

What business expenses is the UTS attempting to disallow? If he did that, it sounds like you would fall into a consumer chapt 7 rather then a non-consumer, is that right?

[debthelper]

My main concern is that we'll be forced into a Chapter 13 and my husband's income is straight commission. It's already stressful not knowing month to month if we'll have enough to cover the basics, I don't want the stress of a set monthly payment that we won't be able to cover.

If you had to file a chapter 13, they wont take every last dollar you have left after monthly expenses. They would have to leave you some money and they would take into account you don't have the predictability of a weekly paycheck (if your husbands income is commission based) so it would be really hard for them to determine what your payments should be. If the debt is from a business that now doesn't exist you might not even have to file bankruptcy. I know a few people who had a business that closed and they didn't file for bankruptcy, they just let the creditors take them to court and since the business is closed and there is no money or assets left the judge would just tell the creditors that there is nothing they can do about it.

Are you working with a lawyer? If not you should be, he would tell you what you have to do to make sure you can still file for chapter 7.

[neverending]

Our family income was cut -my husband's payout percentage was cut 50% and I was working in the business full-time and never drew any pay from it. Between our business running negative $2k-$6k per month and the loss of pay we no longer could keep the doors open. We wiped out all of our assets trying to keep afloat. We tried to work with our creditors and our unsecured personal debts were easy...they would settle and we paid some of them off. Our business debts however refused to settle and filed suit. This is why we filed. We had personally guaranteed the debt.

Yes, if some of the expenses are disallowed, we would fall into a consumer chapter 7 because our mortgage and home equity line total over $425,000 and we also have student loans and about $15,000 in credit card debt that was personal. One of the business expenses in question is the lease expense and CAM costs that we personally guaranteed. These are over $268,000 without future CAM increases. There is also an equipment lease balance of $65,000 and some of our home equity costs were from money we pulled out to pay the bills and payroll when the business didn't generate enough income to cover costs. There was also about $15k in business credit card debt.

[jenbow]

Can I ask what the presumption of abuse and totality of circumstances was?? It looks like we are going to be a consumer chapter 7 and I am worried about everything!

[neverending]

Don't panic! Our situation is VERY unique. One issue we had was that our house payment and our car expenses were too high (The expenses are real and documented but they are above the IRS standards). The UST has decided not to pursue the issue of our house so that is off the table now.

There is more to our case but because it's so unique I don't want to get into details here. Feel free to PM me if you want but I can tell you that a lot of our trouble is caused by the unique way my husband's pay is calculated. If you have a regular paycheck or normal salary you won't have the same complications that we do.

Good Luck!