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Chapter 13 or debt settlement

Date: Fri, 08/15/2008 - 19:50
Submitted by on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 19:50
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Hello, my wife and I are in desperate need of some advice. We have $30000 in unsecured debt and have already talked to a CCCS counselor who advised us that we should file chapter bankruptcy due to all the other secured debt that we have. We have talked to a BK lawyer and it looks like we will only be able to do chapter 13. The question I have about the BK is, my income varies a good bit, depending on how much overtime I can get, right now there is no over time but the last two months there was and so my income was pretty high during those months. The attorney told me that the court will average my income the last 6 months to come up with a payment. The thing that scares me is what if the amount they come up with is high and I'm not working any overtime, then I will not have much to pay my other secured bills. What can I do about this? I've also looked into debt settlement and talked to a company named Debt Regret and they seem very legit. The problem is what happens during a debt settlement? Do they start negotiating right away with your credit companies? Or can the credit companies continue to call you and try collecting from you? I'm at a big time crossroads right now. I need all the help I can get!


Is the reason that you can't file Chapter 7 because your income is too high and you don't meet the means test? If so, what if you were to wait a couple of months? Since you are not currently getting overtime, would that reduce your income average enough that you might be able to qualify?

I know what you mean about not wanting to file Chapter 13 because if your income changes then you might not be able to make the payment. Our income also varies, and I was worried about the same thing, but fortunately, we were able to qualify for Chapter 7.

During debt settlement, the companies can continue to call you. They can also decide to sue you. However, a lot of people are successful at it. You could also consider doing debt settlement on your own and save the fees that you would give to a debt settlement company.


Submitted by alias1958 on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 20:32

alias1958

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