Please Help!!!! BK or SOL?
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Posted by Sissy (208.24.225.42) on March 25, 2003 at 12:44:20:
I have found this message board extremely informative and enlightnening. I feel that I have a rather difficult situation and am in need of advice on the proper avenue to take. In April 1998 my husband(now divorced) and I filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. My husband had begun to have a lot of depression problems along with drug and alcohol abuse. He was in and out of treatment centers creating a lot of medical bills. He was compulsive and caused us to get deep into debt on credit cards and constantly trading in new cars for another creating further negative equity. He would do these things without consulting me or would ignore my pleas for being conservative. Too make matters worse, he began to suffer from serious back and neck problems and had to have surgery on his spine. He ended up losing his job (he had a very good job) due to being unable to work for his back and depression problems. We had a nice new house and two new car payments(Both cars were done without my approval) He even signed my name on one of them, I found out later. Things were so bad at home, I couldnot handle things anymore. We ended up surrendering our two vehicles to lower our monthly payments on the chapter 7, we sold our house, we moved to Louisiana where we lived with my grandmother. I took care of my husband and my grandmother full-time, she has severe alziemers. We ended up having no income for an extended period of time, we were on food stamps and welfare. We could no longer pay on our Chapter 7 so they dismissed our case. I went to an attorney here and was told it should have been switched over to a chapter 13 but since it was not I would have to start over and pay new atty fees to file a chapter 13 in Louisiana. The first two years we were here, we were very poverty stricken. We ended up getting a divorce, I have full custody of our two boys due to my ex's mental and addictive behaviors. He is doing better mentally now. I am degreed and finally was able to get a decent job locally. I got lucky because they didnot do a credit check on me. I was ready to make a fresh start. My job is pretty high profile and with local government. I became embarrassed to file the bankruptcy, because I knew it would be posted in the legal news, it circulates our office.... So I kept putting it off. Now I am seriously involved with a very responsible, sane, nonaddictive, financially secure man. (He knows of my financial problems with my ex) We are planning on becoming marriaged sometime in the future. I talked to the atty again a couple of weeks ago. I was still going to file a joint bankruptcy with my ex and pay the fee myself. THey told me that the bankruptcy proceedings would take up to three months. However, I am still embarrassed about it being published in the legal news. That is when I looked up the Statute of Limitations and found your website. I guess my main question is Should I still try the Chapter 13????. I am afraid I may not be able to get that now due to the income I am making now. My ex's sole income is what he receives from social security disability. Last year I earned over $40,000...However, I do support two children as well. I receive an additional 300.00 a month from social security based on their dads social security disability. He gets another 300.00 for them, I let him keep that since he does help me with them when I have to work late. Would it be beneficial for me to not do the bankruptcy since it will start the clock over on my credit report???? Most of our debts were credit cards and medical bills. They went delinguent the end of 1997. But then we filed chapter 7 in April of 1998. Our chapter 7 was dimissed September of 1999. What date do I use for the statute of limitations? Do I still use 1997 or does it start over at the bankruptcy dismissal date in 1999? Even if it does start over, the statute of limitations should be about run out for the medical and credit card bills. The only other debts that might could cause me a problem would be the remaining debt from the two cars we surrendered. We surrendered the two vehicles while we were under chapter 7 for full statisfaction of debt. However, the last notice I received for one of the vehicles was dated 9/28/98 informing us that they had had to repossess(????we surrended it) the vehicle, they gave us ten days to collect the vehicle, if we didnt they said they would sell the vehicle and we would be responsible for any deficiency. That is the last thing I have received on that vehicle, however, when our ch 7 was dismissed(9/99) and I got our listing of debts from the trustee we had in Georgia, there was a new amount of debt listed that I did not recognize of $7,500.00. I am sure this is the amount that they say we owe after they sold the vehicle. In regards to the other vehicle, The last letter I received from them was in January 2000 after our case was dismissed. THey informed us that they had sold our vehicle and that we still owed $9,918.00 on it. They offered us a settlement amount of 5,000.00. We were still in dire financial straits and maybe it was wrong but we did not respond, I was just going to turn it in to be included in the Ch 13. Please give me some advice on what I should do. I have just ordered my three credit reports and my ex has ordered his three as well. SO that we can see what is on them. I am very afraid to see how bad they are. Thank you soooo much for your advice! Sissy
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