I need some unbies advice from people that have experence in chapter 7. I met with a bankruptcy attorney and thinks I should file for chapter 7. Here are the financials. 220,000.00 in unsecured debt Some have not been given any money for 18 months. 2 mortgages (460,000.00) total 3900.00 per month 2 trucks and a boat (1400.00 per month ) I am selfemployed and have been for the last 9 years. My bussiness is drying up and not providing good income as it has in the past. Most of the unsecued debt is my companies( on my personal cards) I know I qualify for a chapter 7. I would like to be able to keep both properties after the bankruptcy. from what I understand is the trusty will look over the property if it has no equity. We do not have any equity in my primary residents. The second property is leased by my company. I was told that I may be able to keep this property because I use it for my company( need to for the work that I am in) I take care of my parents that are in this home also. ( do not want to see my parent get evicted ) In the current market I do not think their is any equity in that property. Do you think the trusty would force a sale of this property? This is such a stressful time!!! I can tell this is causing some health issues. the Wife is pretty burnt out also. I am concerned weather I would be better off trying to settle the debt or just file for bankruptcy. The problem with working it out with the creditors is I just do not know what kind of income to expect and I do not want to promise something I can not deliver. I am not even making what I need to make for mortgage, food, utilty and food Bankpuptcy does sound like it is an option but i just can not stomach my parents being on the street. the mountian of debt seem so large that I just do not see how I would be able to dig out in the current economy. It is starting to look like bankruptcy is my only choice. Any advice is welcome. thanks
What to expect I would say one of the property is going to go. I of your trucks is going to go. They;ll go after any jewels,etc. They'll look into banking accounts,savings,tax returns etc. Because the business is on your personal cards that almost rules out a business bk are you a corparation?
Thanks for responce. The trucks that I have are under the company name but are garanteed by me. from what the attorny stated,The company would still owe the bank but I would be released from the obligation to pay personaly if I filed bankruptcy for myself and not the company. My company is an LLC. I also can show that the property will support it's self from rent from the company and rent on the home.
He seems to be on top of it.I wish one of our legal type's would jump in.Alot of times you have to see what the trustee will go sfter.
I tend to think what he might want to think about doing is forming a new corporation (Delaware) that has no naming relationship to his present company or to himself and then file huge liens against all his vehicles, the extra property, and all his business equipment. He can open a Delaware bank account and deposit any and all income in the corporate account which would also be located in Delaware and he would write checks against that account, use his atm card and just keep on doing business that way. It would make it almost impossible for anyone to pierce that corporate veil. Although there are companies out there who will do all that for him, I would not recommend that he use any of them due to the fact that he is a businessman and has no wages they could garnish. He needs greater control over his assets than such companies can provide. If he has a viable business which has simply gone downhill due to the economy that would protect his assets until the economy starts turning around and his business becomes profitable again. Once he has his creditors paid off then he can simply release the liens and go on about his business normally. That won't protect him against a possible foreclosure however. In order to do that he should have a mortgage fraud audit performed by a competent mortgage fraud investigator with a solid background in mortgage fraud investigation such as Norm Bradford or Niel Garfield. If the auditor finds violations in his paperwork he could then sue the lenders and possibly end up with one or both properties free and clear. On the other hand he might also qualify for Obama's new loan modification program which will be out sometime next month. However, the new Obama program will only help a small percentage of troubled home owners and probably won't do a thing for his second home. Obama went to Arizona today to unveil his new program and one of my RSS feeds carried a complete analysis of how it will most likely work once they hammer out all the details. Needless to say that report is far too lengthy to post here. The analyst thinks that the Obama plan will help about 6 percent of homeowners in danger of foreclosure at the most. Might be worth looking into however.
Your attorney, if he does a lot of bK's will know the tenor of the trustees in your particular court. I wouldn't recommend calling one. They are not there to help you personally - they are there to protect the bankruptcy estate. IMHO, you would be better off getting the two houses appraised and seeing if there is any equity. What does your attorney suggest you do? It also never hurts to get a 2nd legal opinion.
While the OP might be well advised to contact the attorney who filed the BK I would not be surprised if the attorney told him to get lost. After all, he got his pay. If the attorney won't help him then he has little other choice but to complain to the court.
I have not filed. I only had a consult with the BK attorny. He beleives that I should be able to keep the property and trucks for the bussiness as I need them to make my living. as long as the property does not have any equity in them. I know the Trucks do not. I owe more then they are worth. In the current economy I do not know if the investment property has equity though. If the trusty will make me sell one of the investment property to get the equity I think I would try to sell it myself and try to settle what debts I can. Thanks for the insite Cap1sucks.
