Should I file Bankruptcy or pay my debt?

Question

I am about 30,000 in debt, mostly from credit cards.

I was married already when the debt occured but they are all in my name, not my husbands. This weighs on me alot. I stopped paying on them about 3 years ago. It got very over whelming.

We are wanting to buy a house in about 2 years. I dont know what to do file bankruptcy, offer a settlement, or continue not paying. Alot of them are "charged off as bad debt" or in collection accounts"

What is in the best interest for me and my family?

Take home pay is about 30,000 a yr. We still have to save for a down payment on a house. We have rent, insurance, gas, electric, internet, tv, phone and all the obvious, normal bills to pay too.

I will answer all questions. And I Thank You for any advise any one has to offer.

Answer 1

First , I personally would file bankrupcy. You wont be able to get a mortgage though for 2 years after you file. It actually benefits you on getting a house better then having all that bad debt on your credit. Once you file you need to try to get a small credit card from someone who offers cards to bad credit holders. Pay the credit card off in full each month to start building up your credit again. Then within 2 years you should be good to buy a house...and whatever else you need to apply for credit. But, as I said you wont be able to do anything for 2 years. But, it is better then nothing at all with all the bad debt on your credit if you dont file bankrupcy. good luck!

Answer 2

If you file bankruptcy, you will have a really difficult time getting a house especially with a payment you could afford.
First collect all 3 credit reports and see where you stand.
Next, the charged off debts, call and ask for a settlement offer, usually they can cut how much you owe by half and some are willing to do that in installments.
Next, the debt that you still have open, call the creditors, it may be a battle and be prepared to spend a lot of time but you can usually get your interest rate dropped.
Now, prepare a budget, be strict, allow enough for rent utilities etc, try not to eat out and streamline other expenses, try to carpool etc.
After you figure out how much you have to work with, organize your bills to the one's you owe the least on to the one's you owe the most on. Pay the most to the smallest one's while paying minimum to the rest. When the first one is paid off, take the amt you were paying on that card and add it to the minumum on the next one and so forth. Good luck

Answer 3

If you are thinking about filing bankruptcy, you should talk to a lawyer for advice. While Y!A is a good forum for collecting information, please do not base your decision on what you see posted. It's a HUGE decision to make.
Having said that, just make sure you weigh your options. Filing bankruptcy will clear your slate, but that comes at a cost. It will be on your credit report for 10 years and you will be susceptible to higher interest rates because of it. You may also be turned down for loans for a while. Your two year time frame for getting a house may be unrealistic if you decide to file. Most lenders will want to see that a bankruptcy has been discharged for at least two years with reestablished credit before they will give you a mortgage. (unless you want to put the house in your husband's name...then that's different).
On the other hand, you might want to consider how long it would take you to dig out of the debt you have accumulated. Since many of the accounts have gone to collections, the creditors may be willing to settle for less than you actually owe. That's a good thing. If you can come up with 50% (for example) of what you owe in a lump sum, that could be an option for you...sometimes collection agencies are willing to negotiate. To them, some money is better than none.
Might I suggest you visit a non-profit credit counseling agency like CCCS. They can go over everything with you and give you some sound advice.
Good luck to you dear!

Answer 4

Your solution depends on the actual facts of you situation. So you owed 30K in total debt most were credit cards although some of them are charged off. The ones in collections you still owe so include those in your balance and the ones that were "charged off" may give you some problems.

Companies have the right to charge off your debt and then send you a 1099 form so that you have to include that charge off as income and pay taxes on it in the year that it happened. This may or may not happen but it's a concern because you will owe about $150 per thousand of cancelled debt. This is a "if" situation but something to keep in mind.

The main issue is that you need to find a credit counselor to help you work out a solution. You may end up in chapter 13 which is also known as a "wage earners plan". This is where if you have any ability to pay back even a portion of your debts then instead of filing Chapter 7 (discharging all debt) you get a payment plan of up to 5 years to pay the debt back and at the end of that payment plan the unpaid portion is discharged (cancelled) and the bankruptcy is closed.

The main thing is to find out what your actual options are and by law in order to file bankruptcy you need to visit a credit counselor first and determine your steps. For a list of approved counselors click the last link and search for the judicial district that covers your state (of the 94) and they'll have links on their site. Congrats on dealing with yours issues. The quicker you deal with them the quicker it's all over. Good luck.

Answer 5

Hi. First off, filing bankruptcy is not a bad thing. I work for a bankruptcy attorney and there are NUMEROUS reasons why our clients file bankruptcy and all of them are decent, hard working people. Filing bankruptcy, in some instance, can improve your credit. Simply because the debt is charged off does not
mean that the debt cannot be collected. The charge offs that are listed on your credit report is still a debt that you legally owe and is factored in to your debt to income ratio which is critical for home buying. If the debt is discharged in bankruptcy, it is not legally owed, but it will be listed as a debt that was discharge in bankruptcy. There are ways to improve your credit post bankruptcy and a good bankruptcy attorney can advise you of such. As in my profession, I have seen many people recover from bankruptcy and feel that it was the best choice they could have made. As an aside, several of our clients were professional athletes...see even they have financial issue too.

Just remember, that regardless of what some of the responders say, you can recover from bankruptcy. It is not the end of the world.

Hope this helped

Answer 6

I'm willing to bet it won't be nearly as hard to pay it off as you think. It definitely won't take as long as it would to get over a bankruptcy. BK is a difficult, gut-wrenching process to go through, regardless of how some people make it seem like just a little bit of paperwork.

Call your creditors and tell them your situation. Let them know you'd like a settlement, because you have very little to pay them with. If you're persistent, they will work with you.

When they offer a settlement, get it in writing BEFORE you send them any money. Pay them by money order or cashiers check ONLY! Do not give them electronic payments or post-dated checks. Very bad idea....even though some will claim that's all they take for payments.

To pay them off, try the Debt Snowball method of debt reduction. It's a popular plan with financial advisors & with a little bit of focus, it really does work.

The basic steps in the debt snowball method are as follows:
1. List all debts in ascending order from smallest balance to largest. This is the method's most distinctive feature, in that the order is determined by amount owed, not the rate of interest charged. However, if two debts are very close in amount owed, then the debt with the higher interest rate would be moved above in the list.
2. Commit to pay the minimum payment on every debt.
3. Determine how much extra can be applied towards the smallest debt.
4. Pay the minimum payment plus the extra amount towards that smallest debt until it is paid off.
5. Then, add the old minimum payment from the first debt to the extra amount, and apply the new sum to the second smallest debt.
6. Repeat until all debts are paid in full.

Once the debts are paid off, then start saving for the house. Right now, you need to take any money you were saving for this and throw it on some of your debt.

All of this will take a while to get through, but if you & your husband focus, you will get through this together.

Answer 7

I don't understand why people think filing bankruptcy is a good thing. You are hurting yourself more by filing bankruptcy then just starting up a payment plan with your creditors.

Your credit is already damaged beyond belief! why should you beat the dead horse on the head when the damage is already done? My advice is this. Start contacting those credit companies and see if they will settle for a lesser amount since you cant pay that debt anyway and make payments on the money that you owe to them.

Second, sorry but whatever you do, do not put your name on the lease or deed or loan or what have you when you go to buy your new house, if you have a husband then let him place his name on it. Your credit is shot all you will be doing is adding higher interest and possibly a denial for your loan application.

What you have just done is going to hurt you for many years to come. owing 30,000 is ALOT of money and I dont think you see that as a serious thing. If I were a bank and you asked for a loan or money I would tell you ARE YOU INSANE!

Not trying to be mean to you but giving you advice. You dug yourself a very deep hole to climb out of, not that its not impossible but a lot of work and effort needs to be done to dig you out of that mess, and by that I mean paying your bills that you OWE on time. So count yourself financially inept for a very long time.

Third in order to clear yourself out of that hole your husband needs to quit possibly take financial responsibility of the house hold while most of your earnings go into paying off your OUTSTANDING debt. Sorry to tell you this but buying a home in two years just might be out of arms reach unless you want another debt piled next to the one that you already owe.

Another option is to start selling alot of your stuff so that you can come up with money to pay off some of that credit. It may hurt for a while but get rid of the debt as fast as possible by declaring bankruptcy will only make it look worse than it is now.

Answer 8

Obviously don't file for bankruptcy. Negotiate to pay it off. It's not as bad as you think even though it's in collections. Just explain that it's a medical bill to future creditors and they're not as critical vs. a credit card debt. Medical bill is not as bad because it's an emergency vs. credit card debt means you're irresponsible. It will be a long time before you recover from bankruptcy.

Answer 9

DONT FILE BANKRUPTCY. So many people file bankuptcy just because they are in debt. As long as you can keep paying off some of it every month you should continue to do it. Having debt does not always hurt your credit score. I have been in debt my entire post college life. I own a house at a very good rate, lease a nice car, and have a good credit score. Just keep chipping away it if you can. If you file for bankruptcy you are cooked for the next 7 years.

Answer 10

The Chapter 7 bankruptcy is applicable if you have no regular sources of income. It works by reducing or clearing off all your debts. You can then make a fresh start without having to worry about having to pay your debts.

Once you file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy court assigns a trustee who works as an intermediary between you and the debtors. He oversees everything and checks out if the bankruptcy plan is going as planned.