Tennessee Bankruptcy Legal Questions

That is actually a complex question.  However, and this is very simplified, Chapter 7 is a complete liquidation of almost all your assets, but, in a fairly short time, you are completely free of most types of debt.  Chapter 13 is basically a reduction of your debts coupled with a payment plan of a few years. Most people will NOT qualify for Chapter 7 based on what is called a "means test" that is applied to determine eligibility.... Read More

Ms. Bailey, this forum is for asking for specific legal questions.  As to cost, attorneys have different prices, but they are usually within the same ball park in the same areas so you will need to find an attorney that will help you in your area.  In general terms, the state of Tennessee is divided into 3 areas: Western Tennessee, Middle Tennessee and Eastern Tennessee.  I practice in the Eastern area so, for example, if you contacted my office they could provide you with the general information and costs for the counties in Eastern Tennessee. ... Read More

It all depends if your partner was an authorized user of the card or if he was actually on the account. If you are simply an authorized user, the debt is all yours and he cannot file bankruptcy against that debt, but he also does not have a duty to pay the debt. If his name is on the account itself, yes he can file bankruptcy on that debt and will no longer be obligated to pay it, it will be all your debt. I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147 #bankruptcy  #lawyer  #FallRiver  #Chapter7  #chapter13  #debt  #debtsettlement  #foreclosure  #attorney   #cantpaybills  #lawsuit  #court  #bankruptcycourt  #eviction  #lostmyjob... Read More

The only way to answer a question this broad is to have a consultation with an experienced bankruptcy attorney in your area.   There is nowhere near enough information provided to evaluate your options, nor is this the forum to do so. Chapter 13 is designed for individuals who are operating a business, so it is likely a good option for you if you want to keep your business operating, and assuming this business is a sole proprietorship (as opposed to a corporation or partnership). Corporations and partnerships cannot file Chapter 13.   Those entities would need to file Chapter 11 (or 7) if necessary.    ... Read More

Is bankruptcy for me? This is certainly a question you really should have with an experienced bankruptcy attorney, to go over your entire financial history, not simply what you've placed in this question. But with that stated, considering you have about $10,000 in unsecured debt in a home that is under water and your income has dropped two thirds, I would say that chapter 7 bankruptcy was a very good option for you. Bankruptcy is intended to help those who have had some difficulty with their income and in your case losing two thirds of your income certainly puts you in a situation where bankruptcy would be very advantageous. The fact your unsecured debt is about $10,000, does not concern me as much as having a house that's underwater and losing two thirds of your income. You may waste all of your income for the next couple years trying to maintain this debt, without the ability to ever pay it off, and you will be forced into bankruptcy at a certain point in the future. If you ever lose more than one third of your income, bankruptcy should always be a consideration. I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147 #bankruptcy  #lawyer  #FallRiver  #Chapter7  #chapter13  #debt  #debtsettlement  #foreclosure  #attorney   #cantpaybills  #lawsuit  #court  #bankruptcycourt  #eviction  #lostmyjob... Read More

You only have two options here in a dismissed chapter 13 bankruptcy case such as yours. You can either come up with the money and pay back everything that was masked and get back with your plan, but it seems that you do not have the funds to do that. Most likely you will have to have your bankruptcy converted to a chapter 7 bankruptcy. Usually people file chapter 13 bankruptcies to save either a home or a car or they make too much money. I would assume you would take advantage of a chapter 13 bankruptcy to save a house, but if you cannot make the bankruptcy trustee payments every month and your normal bills, there is no way to stay within a chapter 13 bankruptcy, your only option would be convert to a chapter 7 bankruptcy or just let the ch 13 get dismissed. I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147 #bankruptcy  #lawyer  #FallRiver  #Chapter7  #chapter13  #debt  #debtsettlement  #foreclosure  #attorney   #cantpaybills  #lawsuit  #court  #bankruptcycourt  #eviction  #lostmyjob  ... Read More

If you are being foreclosed upon in 12 days you may file a chapter 13 bankruptcy to stop the foreclosure on your house. When you file either chapter 7 bankruptcy or chapter 13 bankruptcy what is called the automatic stay comes into place and this keeps creditors from foreclosing, debt collection and taking you to court. Now a chapter 7 will not help you save your house or car, unless you are all court up on payments, you will not be able to keep them in a chapter 7 bankruptcy. Since you said that your house is in foreclosure, that obviously means that you are not up to date on your payments, therefore chapter 7 bankruptcy would not help you, but chapter 13 bankruptcy would. In chapter 13 bankruptcy you get to keep making normal monthly payments on your mortgage and car loan, and get a three to five-year. Two pay back the payments that are in arrears. This basically works when someone lost their job for a while and now has a job again and can make their monthly payments once more. Another advantage to a chapter 13 bankruptcy that the vast majority people are not aware of is you can't force the bank into "good faith" review of a mortgage modification. With this means is when you go to get under mortgage modification you have no legal rights, there is no legal right to a mortgage modification, any bank can just say no at any time and they usually do. Always in a chapter 13 bankruptcy the bank must give a valid reason that you cannot have a mortgage modification, they cannot simply say that you are not approved. I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147... Read More

Once you are in the bankruptcy process, you cannot simply get out of it or not follow the rules. If you were to sell your house during a chapter 13 bankruptcy, the amount you sell your house for Maes cover the mortgage and all arrears. You can never sell your house for less money then you owe to the bank. As you didn't have a problem with filing bankruptcy, then you are best route would be to convert your chapter 13 bankruptcy to a chapter 7 bankruptcy and surrender the house. This would get rid of your debt on the house and would also prevent you from having any IRS tax obligations due to a deficiency between the auction sale price and the amount still owed on the mortgage. Remember that the home is secured debt, there is no way around secured debt unless you surrender the property. But when you surrender home and there's a deficiency between the sale price and what remains on the mortgage, the bank will report that to the IRS as a loss on their side and will reported to the IRS as income for your tax return for that taxable year. Filing chapter 7 bankruptcy would prevent this. If you cannot convert from a chapter 13 bankruptcy to a chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can simply surrender the home in the chapter 13 bankruptcy and continue making payments on your unsecured debt. I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147... Read More

Whether a bankruptcy trustee will sell any assets you have (including your house)  depends on which bankruptcy chapter you file, the value of the asset, and what exemptions you have available under applicable state or federal law to protect the value in that asset. There is no reason you should lose your house if your attorney does their job correctly and obtains the necessary information to advise you on the best option in your case. Getting a quality bankruptcy attorney is your first step towards finding the answer in your case.  ... Read More

Well, the first thing you should do is pay the court fees to the court. Then you should contact the US Trustee's Office in your district and report the attorney to them. Then you should contact your state bar and file a complaint against the attorney. If you had your Trustee's meeting in November, I assume the only impediment to you receiving a discharge is paying the $306 filing fee, but I don't know if there are other issues in your case.  You may need to hire another attorney to review everything and see. But most likely you're just going to be fighting over the return of the $306, which is a Trust Fund issue and severe sanctions can be levied against your attorney for that.... Read More

The cost to file a chapter 7 bankruptcy is $306. There are two online courses that you need to take generally between $9-$25. Those are your basic costs not including legal fees if you choose to hire a bankruptcy attorney. If you want to attempt to do it yourself you can, although the documents are very difficult to understand and if you make a mistake you will be considered no different than if you had an attorney. Attempting to file bankruptcy yourself does not absolving you from following the rules of bankruptcy court, just like any court, you need to be as competent as an attorney to do it and will not be given leeway for mistakes made.   I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.    Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law http://fallriverbankruptcyattorney.com/ 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147... Read More

The answer to your question is yes, you may file bankruptcy while you are on disability. In chapter 7 bankruptcy you are not limited to filing based on your income, in fact you are limited if you make too much income when filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In chapter 13 bankruptcy you are not limited by how much you make, but if you do not make enough to pay your regular bills that must be paid on a monthly basis and make an additional payment towards your chapter 13 bankruptcy, then you will not be allowed to use this form of bankruptcy, which is usually used by those attempting to save a home from foreclosure.   I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where my firm is located. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.      Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO LAW GROUP Attorneys At Law www.botelholawgroup.com 901 Eastern Ave.  Unit 2 Fall River, MA 02723  Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147... Read More

There's no definite answer to your question.  The optimal time to file bankruptcy depends on the specifics of your situation.  I can tell you that the debts you mentioned would likely be dischargeable in a bankruptcy case regardless of whether the case is filed before or after they get a judgment against you in state court. However, once they get a judgment, they can start trying to collect on the judgment, which includes putting a lien against any property you own, garnishing wages, seizing bank accounts, etc.  Most of these are temporary problems, until you file a bankruptcy case, but once they get a lien against property, the lien will remain against that property unless and until it is removed in a bankruptcy case, which may or may not be possible depending on the value of the asset in question, amounts of other liens against it, etc. So it's certainly safer and in the long run less expensive to file bankruptcy before a judgment is entered, but it is still available to you either way.  You should of course have a consultation with a bankruptcy attorney in your area for more information on your situation. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

Whether you can keep your house or any other assets depends on their value and what exemptions are available under applicable law in your case. Exemptions are "protections" for value you have in certain assets such that they are "exempt" from collections.  Every state has different exemptions amounts available. Exemption laws are based on the state where you resided for the 2 years prior to filing your bankruptcy case or, if you lived in more than 1 state during that period, in the state where you resided for the greater part of the 180 days prior to that 2 year period.  You need to have a consultation with an experienced bankruptcy attorney in your area to determine what your options are. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau. ... Read More

Yes, filing bankruptcy will stop the garnishment.  But unless you file and prevail at trial in showing that the repayment of the loan will constitute an "undue hardship" on you (as that term is defined by courts in your district), then it will not be discharged. Chapter 13 is a common vehicle to deal with these types of student loan debts.  You file the case to enable you to make an affordable monthly payment on the loans (whatever your budget shows you can afford).  Of course, it may never be paid off this way, but it will prevent them from garnishing wages or taking other collections actions against you. There are non-bankruptcy repayment alternatives, such as Income based repayment, but you have to rehabilitate your loan first to take it out of default before you can take advantage of those programs, such as throught the Direct Loan Servicing Center. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

You need to consult with a qualified bankruptcy attorney in your area.  Your question is too broad and missing too many facts to properly answer here. How you would "use" your equity in a Chapter 13 case depends on the dollar amounts and what exemptions you have available to protect that equity under applicable law. Among the many requirements in Chapter 13, you are required to pay out to your creditors at least as much as they would get in a Chapter 7 liquidation so the actual numbers are important to answering your question. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

I think you have a misunderstanding about student loan dischargeability and how Chapter 13 plans work. In 1999 student loans were only dischargeable if you proved, after a trial, that repaying the loan would constitute an undue hardship.  If you did not file an undue hardship lawsuit and have that adjudicated in your favor, then your student loan debt was not discharged.   That has nothing to do with whether and to what extent the student loan creditor(s) share in the distribution under your plan.  They are entitled to receive the same pro rata share as any other unsecured creditor in that payment class.  But if at the end of your Chapter 13 there is still a balance owing (i.e. you did a less than 100% plan), then you will still owe the student loan agency that amount and they can seek to collect on that after your bankruptcy case is closed. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

Whether you can keep your vehicle, or any other assets, depends on a number of factors, none of which you have disclosed. What is the value of the vehicle?  How much is owed against it?  Which state's exemption laws apply in your bankruptcy case? Most likely if you stay current with the payments on your vehicle you can keep it, but you need to consult with a bankruptcy attorney in your area for more details on what you can and cannot keep. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

They can order a credit report, with your authorization, but that's not a very reliable method of ascertaining your debts.   Of course, if you haven't retained your billing statements or other evidence of your debt, it's better than nothing. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.  ... Read More

There's nowhere near enough information to answer your question.  Since you reference bankruptcy payments, I assume (although you fail to state) that you are in a Chapter 13 case.  Chapter 13 plans can be modified to suspend, reduce or increase payments as the need arises, upon a duly noticed motion and approval by the court. Whether you can lower payments in your case depends on how you have structured your plan and whether you have any priority claims or arrearages that need to be repaid 100% and whether your liquidation analysis showed the need to pay a certain amount. If you don't have a bankruptcy attorney, you need to get one immediately to advise you on your options.  If you do have a bankruptcy attorney and they are unable to answer this question, you need to get a new bankruptcy attorney. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau. ... Read More

It depends on two things. 1. Are you filing Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy? 2. Are you behind on any payments for your home or car? In Chapter 13 Bankruptcy you don't lose any of your assets, instead of liquidation of assets, you have a Structured Repayment Plan. In Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, you may "Reaffirm" your debt, with a Reaffirmation Agreement, which basically tells the creditor and bankruptcy court, that you will NOT discharge this debt and that you reaffirm it is still valid. The two problems that could occur are: 1. If you are behind on payments, you cannot reaffirm debt, 2. the Bankruptcy Court may determine you cannot afford the loan and discharge the debt eitherway and the creditor will be able to repose your car or foreclose on your home.   I have responded to your inquiry according to the laws of Massachusetts, where I practice. Laws can vary significantly from state to state and cases tend to be rather fact-specific, so you are best served by consulting with a knowledgeable attorney in weighing your options. Email messages/Online Correspondence are akin to conversations and do not reflect the level of analysis applied to formal legal opinions. Email/Online responses do not form an attorney-client relationship.      Joseph F. Botelho, Esq. BOTELHO & ASSOCIATES, LLC Attorneys At Law   www.massachusettslawyeronline.com 126 Shove Street Unit 202 Fall River, MA 02724 Office:  888-269-0688 FAX:    877-475-8147... Read More