Posts Tagged ‘retaining a lawyer’

Closing the business will it need to file bankruptcy

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Today I decided I would need to close the business. My month to date sales are down about 90% from last year. I am barely bringing in enough money to pay the electric bill, let alone any other bills. This is tough. I’ve been in this business for 17 years, and had the store for 3 years now, but the economy has changed, and my business is a sport for people. Not needed, good sales when there is extra income… with high gas prices and a bad economy, no one is even coming in the doors.

Not only that, but if I stay in the building I will still be responsible for my rent. Since I included my business landlord in the bankruptcy if I am out of the building the same month as filing I am only responsible for rent prior to filing.

One more thing to worry about. Ugh.

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Bill Collection phone calls

Monday, September 15th, 2008

Well, I had had posted before we have great credit. My wife and I have NEVER had a late payment in 24 years until recently when we stopped paying due to the upcoming bankruptcy. We are now falling 45 days past due on some credit cards as well as our mortgage.

The last few days the collection calls have started coming in. It appears they are auto-dialed so if you don’t answer the phone the calls come about once an hour. Most of them have caller ID hidden, which is a dead give-away.

Since we have not actually filed our bankruptcy case yet, I’m going to try and avoid them. Once we file, an “automatic stay” is put in place and they can not call you after they have been notified. You can also refer them to your lawyer to have them deal with it as well.

Nothing has shown up on our credit scores or credit reports yet as far as late payments.

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Retaining a bankruptcy attorney

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Well… today was the day. As I mentioned before we were trying to get some financing to avoid having to file bankruptcy. However due to the current credit crunch, no financing came through. It’s time to retain our bankruptcy lawyer.

We chose to go with the last one we spoke with who was refered by my business attorney. The others we spoke with just didn’t give us that warm fuzzy feeling.

We supplied him with 6 months of bank statements, last years tax return, information on our car loan, etc. Our attorney charges a flat rate for a chapter 7, or a chapter 13 bankruptcy. Chapter 13 is about $1000 more than a chapter 7. We are in Florida, and I believe the amount a lawyer can charge is dictated by the laws. Of course if anything out of the ordinary happens during the course of the bankruptcy he charges a hourly rate in addition to the flat rate we already paid.

Based on preliminary information he thinks we will have to be in a chapter 13 plan. I really hope this isn’t the case as we have NO extra income. We already know we will have to surrender the house, as without the business there will be no way to make enough income to make the payment. This sucks! We are pushing for a chapter 7 but will need to do the means test required by the government.

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