I am married, house and secured autos all current on time, kids, and income is way too high to pass Ch. 7 means test. Old credit card debt (greater than 3 years) is now starting to summons me to court for judgments. With all the garbage fees, debt is somewhere around $30k. Do I?:1) File ch. 13, freezing my life for 5 years while I discharge?2) Go to court and fight the credit card companies?3) Call up cc companies and ask for a reduced payoff (with might work for a few, but I have very little reserve $ and probably wouldn't be able to pay off most of them for some time)Because of the cc, my scores are in the toilet, so there is no opportunity of borrowing against my house to consolidate - which I've tried already.Anyone experienced ch. 13 with similar constraints? Anyone experienced negotiating with cc companies for reduction in payoff?Thanks in advance for your help.
I have NO experience with bankruptcy but have a lot of experience in the art of negotiating ; )You owe 30K in CC debt? All are with the OC's? If so WHO? If they are now in the hands of JDB's WHO? What is your income? Are you self employed? Do you have a Homestead on your home? 30K to some is a lot of money and to others not that much. If all of the debts are with the OC I would call and ask if they could reduce the interest rate, give you NO interest for a year or take a chunk off the debt for you to catch up Years ago when I was in debt hell to about 10 times what you owe, ALL the OC's that would work with me got paid, the ones that didn't ..didn't... and neither did the third party buyers : ) BANKRUPTCY WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME as I had too much $ in many things. Looking back and trying to remember, Discover took off 1K on a 12K debt, and reduced the rate for a year.. BoA gave me no interest for a year. Sears reduced the interest in half.(under 9 percent) GE took 1K off of 10K and kept the interest high like 18 percent Chevy Chase dealt with me by chopping the debt in less than half (was 25K I gave them 9K) three installments. There were others but can't remember them now. AS for the OC's that didn't work with me like I said they went to charge off and then a few years later I was getting sued, no one got anything , but me, as I had my ducks in a row. : ) If you can pay pay... Much easier and you get it done with and with many OC's they will give you another CC form their company. If you can't pay you can't... My way was basically self induced bankruptcy, no court..Just me making the rules... If you can deal with the stress of phone calls and a lot of paper work then do a wait and see and then go to court or hire a lawyer as this may be the way out for you or maybe it isn't. Woofer
While chap 13 is a way to go only use it if you have to i had to file chap 7 of course im paying for it,sometime's you have no choice,but it is something to avoid,mine was discharged in dec,i have been able to get a couple of decent cards.good luck
Chapter 7 - completely getting rid of bills - is THE way to go - IF you qualify. Chapter 13 is a court mandated repayment scam.
On chap 13 if you can pay now then 13 isn't going to help,i agree that chap 7 is the way,any way you should homestead your house even if you do nothing.
default that will stay on your credit rating for about 8 years, then clean slate bankruptcy is waaay too expensive. but really, try negotiating.
