Posts Tagged ‘Bankruptcy’

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Bankruptcy chapter 7 No Asset case number

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

It’s official, we bankrupt. Our case was filed today, and we received our case number from the court system. Here in Florida everything is filed electronically which is nice as it’s quick.

We will now sign up for a PACER account. PACER is the federal court system that monitors federal cases. Anything that occurs during the bankruptcy case, and documents filed, motions from the judge, etc. will be shown here. Every district has their own system. You can use a credit card (no charge right away) to gain immediate access to see what happens. You get charged $.08 a page for viewing documents. If you use this be careful on the searches you do… as some people have gotten bills for hundreds of dollars! You get charged per page for any inquiry results. You are charged quarterly.

We are on the way to a fresh start! Which is what filing for bankruptcy is all about.

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Submitting bankruptcy paperwork to lawyer

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Finally finished with all the paperwork! Whew! Since we own a business, all income, expenses, payments in last 6 months, all vendors (over 100) all business and personal credit cards, EVERYTHING has to be included. We must have spent 40+ hours getting all of the info and entering it into the online software interview.

I’m glad we did this, as I can see if you handed it over to an attorney that some could get missed or entered incorrectly. Especially if they have a lot of cases to deal with.

Now the attorney with review the info, and we will get together next week to review and sign the paperwork and actually file the case. I was hoping to get it done by the end of the month, but due to all the documentation it will take some time for him to review the entries.

We have decided on a personal bankruptcy, as opposed to business at this point as ALL debts to vendors, credit cards and even my business landlord are personally gauranteed. That means even if the business filed bankruptcy they could still come after me personally. I have no money!

We will have to see what happens to the business in the next couple months as sales are horrible, and we sre coming into our slower period of sales.

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Bankruptcy looks inevitable

Monday, September 8th, 2008

Well the last several weeks, store sales have been dismal. I’m not able to pay myself (Which is how our house payent is paid) and based on input from multiple bankruptcy lawyers, I am not paying anything other than necessary bills. Like electric, etc. I am not paying vendors, credit cards, etc.

This is from a two-fold reason… first the income just isn’t there. But, what I found from the internet as well as the attorneys we spoke to, if you pay some bills and not other this can be seen by the court as preferential treatment. The court can actually take that money back to disperse it evenly.

Here’s an example… say I pay one credit card $1000, andother one $500 and skip a third one. The court can see this as preferentail treatment to certain creditors and take the money back from the two I paid. I suspect you don’t see it for credit cards… but say you repay a family member, or pay off a car. This can lead to trouble. The court usually looks back about 6 months, but can request much farther back.

Be sure to check out some of the books I recommended in This Post for details or more bankruptcy info.

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New trouble in financial land

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Well… looks like the ball has started rolling. I just got a letter from my business landlord, stating they wanted payment in full in 10 days for all past due rent. I contacted my business attorney, and he suggested I call the last lawyer who he had recommended previously.

I went into the office this afternoon. He is going to contact the landlords attorney and try to hold them off. He also has some bank contacts he suggested to see if financing may be possible, and to try to avoid bankruptcy if at all possible. He also recommended AGAINST debt settlement. The big reason, is because any debt a credit card company writes off (Settles for) you are responsible for the difference via income tax.

That means if you owe $25,000 on a credit card, and they settle for $10,000 you will get a 1099 form at the end of the year for the $15,000 difference. That means your tax bracket probably goes up, and you are responsible for a LOT more taxes! That’s no good in my opinion!

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Bankruptcy lawer consultation by phone

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Today was another consultation, but by phone this time. The attorney took most of the same info the first one did. This lawyer seemed a little more personable than our first consultation. I suggested we would really like to do a chapter 7 instead of a chapter 13 if possible. In reality we will have no income left over if we have to close the business. He stated we would have to do the “means test” I spoke of previously.

He stated It would take a couple weeks to file papers once all the documentation was received. We also discussed debt reduction programs as you are now hearing about all the time. I seems there are TV and radio ads running all the time.

It is looking more inevitable as time passes. Store sales are not recovering after the slow month last month, and I am not able to pay some other bills now coming due. Rent is several months behind now. Oh-boy.

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