If you have a house, and you file for bankruptcy, what happens to your house?

Question

We live in CA, Los Angeles to be more exact. Also, what happens to the car that you've leased? What about, for example, furniture that you've purchased from Levitz (the furniture store) with their financing? None of this was recent, it almost a year ago that we purchased the furniture, and 2.5 years since we bought the house.

Answer 1

if you cannot swing the lease payments, the car get repoed back to the lease company, as you never own the car nor are you really making payments to own the car, therefore it is not protected in bankruptcy ( unless you reaffirm it to keep making payments )
the house may or may not be protected
the furniture can be repossed if they show up ( the creditor ) to the meeting, much depends on the value of the furniture

Answer 2

That depends on 3 things.
1. How much equity do you have?
2. Can you reaffirm the debt on those items.
3. What are they worth now.
You can't keep anything with a debt attached without keeping the attached debt. If you have a significant amount of equity in the house, you will have to use that equity to pay towards any debts to be discharged.

You can usually keep a house and a REASONABLE car. Personal assets up to a certain amount may also be protected. My not so educated guess is you will keep you house and the mortgage and lose the car.

Answer 3

You can usually keep your house and car if you can afford it. Creitors will show up at the hearing if they want you to pay for example the furniture they will make you pay full price for it work out a pay off for it or in most cases not show up then it's yours.

Answer 4

They repossess your property. The bank does, that is. It's not really yours... if you're filing for bankruptcy then obviously you can't be making the payments.