It is common for a bad financial situation to spiral into marital discord. One spouse may incur a significant amount of debt, fail to work for an extended period of time, or does not consult the other spouse when making purchases on joint accounts.
Divorce and Bankruptcy
If you and your spouse have a significant amount of joint debt it may be best to entertain bankruptcy as an option prior to filing for divorce. Bankruptcy is a much cheaper alternative to racking up a large bill with a family lawyer to argue about who is going to take over which debts when both people may be able to get rid of all the debt.
Furthermore, your spouse cannot assume your debt in a settlement agreement. For example, if you have a joint judgment against you from Company A for $50,000 and your divorce decree says your spouse should assume all debt from Company A. Company A can still pursue you for the debt despite what your divorce decree says. You would then have to sue your spouse to recover what you paid Company A. Therefore, if both spouses owed money to Company A, that could have been discharged in a bankruptcy, that would obviate the need and expenses to file suit against the other spouse for collection of debt after the divorce is finalized.
Contact Gina Rosato Law Firm to discuss your Bankruptcy Options
Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13 bankruptcy can wipe out your obligation to pay the loan, but the lender can still retrieve the vehicle if you are not current on your payments.
Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Car Repossession
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy eliminates unsecured debts and may free up more of your income to pay for your vehicle.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Car Repossession
A Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan will assist you in avoiding the repossession of your car and allow you to continue making affordable monthly payments on the loan. You can redeem your car and pay only the fair market value instead the full value of the amount borrowed if you have had your vehicle 910 days prior to filing bankruptcy. This can be very helpful for people with bad credit who are paying exorbitant interest rates on their vehicles.
Car Repossession Example
For example if you have a car loan for $10,000 on a vehicle now only worth $5,000 you can “cram down” the loan amount to $5,000 to make the payments more manageable or instead of paying an 18% interest rate you maybe able to lower it to the current standard interest rate which can potentially save you thousands of dollars in interest.
Contact Gina Rosato Law Firm to discuss your Car Repossession Options
If you car payments are unmanageable or if you have missed payments, contact me today for a consultation at: 813-463-8000.
If homeowners association fees are causing you to consider bankruptcy, you must first consider whether or not you want to save your home or surrender your property.
Surrender your property through bankruptcy
If you want to surrender your property, the overdue fees you accrued before you file for bankruptcy are dischargeable but you can still incur fees from the time you file for bankruptcy until your home is actually foreclosed on and sold by the lender.
Save your Home from foreclosure through bankruptcy
If you want to keep your home, homeowners association fees unpaid prior to the bankruptcy petition may be dischargeable, if no lien is filed in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Even if the debt is discharged, the HOA can still put a lien against your property and foreclose on it for the unpaid balance. The good news is that you can strip or remove the lien if the value of your home is worth less than you owe on the first mortgage.
Homeowners Association fees bankruptcy example
Consider this scenario. You have a debt from HOA fees amounting to $15,000. You owe $130,000 on your mortgage and the fair market value of your property is $100,000. You can file a motion to eliminate the $15,000 lien that the homeowners association has on your property, get that debt discharged and prevent the lender from foreclosing on your property. This is a huge relief for homeowners struggling to pay unforeseen assessments, fines, or who are behind on their payments only to have additional attorneys fees and costs added to their insurmountable homeowners association fees debt.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy can help you with debt from homeowners association fees
Even if you do have equity in your home, filing for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy may allow you to spread the amount you owe the homeowners association over 60 months and prevent foreclosure allowing you to catch up by making a lower monthly payment.
Tampa Bankruptcy attorney Gina Rosato
If you are experiencing issues with debt from homeowners association fees, then bankruptcy is a valid consideration for you. Bankruptcy can help you to get a fresh start and the opportunity to become financially stable again. Contact Gina Rosato today for a consultation at: 813-463-8000.
If you have a debt that has been “charged off” this means that your original creditor has written your debt off their books. However, this DOES NOT mean that you are not responsible for the payment of the debt. Creditors often sell individual debts to third party collection companies whose business is debt collection. The collection company will first contact you in an attempt to collect the debt and if unsuccessful will take further actions such as filing a lawsuit and obtaining a judgment. After a judgment is entered, the creditor has the power to garnish wages, seize assets, or assert a lien against your property.
If you are uncertain whether or not an “old debt” is still valid, you should pull a credit report to obtain the date of your last payment to each creditor to determine whether the time has expired for the creditor to collect against the debt. If you are dealing with a creditor pursuing a debt that has been “charged off” or old debt and want to evaluate whether or not the debt is valid feel free to contact me to discuss your options.
This is the most common question I get during an initial phone call. There are three components to look at to determine the total cost of your bankruptcy:
Credit Counseling
Court Costs mandated by the Middle District (Federal Bankruptcy Court)
Attorneys Fees
Credit Counseling is a pre-requisite to filing your case. This means every person who files a case must complete a credit-counseling course. The good news is its inexpensive and costs about $20-45 and can be done at home on-line. It takes about an hour and many clients actually find it informative. The court costs to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy are: $338 dollars and $313 dollars to file a Chapter 13 case. The court not the attorney sets these mandatory court filing fees.
The Middle District Court (Federal Bankruptcy Court) actually mandates how much an attorney can charge for Chapter 7 cases, Chapter 13 cases, motions and attendance at hearings. For this reason, there is generally not a huge variation on what attorneys charge their clients. In fact, every attorney is required to file a fee disclosure with the court on every single case to make sure you are being charged a fair attorney fee.
My fee will vary slightly depending on the complexity of the case. I do not advertise for $300 bankruptcy as a tactic to upsell you when you get into my office for the initial consult. I am completely upfront with you on a total price during the initial consult. I will handle every aspect of your case thoroughly from beginning to end to make sure the outcome is successful and stress free for you. With that being said, if you make this a priority and its important to you to get your bankruptcy filed, I will absolutely work with you to make an arrangement that meets you budget. We offer affordable monthly payment plans to fit your budget. Do not let that be an obstacle to getting the help you need.
Making the wrong choice on an attorney can be a very costly mistake. If the proper exemptions are not claimed and the attorney has not thoroughly reviewed all of your documents – you may end up paying a lot more to the trustee than to your lawyer if the paperwork is not filed correctly. Especially when its unexpected and you cannot afford it. While the costs and fees are several hundred dollars – many people discharge tens of thousands of dollars in debt so the benefit is huge relative to the cost. If you have any questions regarding the cost to file your bankruptcy please contact me.
It is common for a bad financial situation to spiral into marital discord. One spouse may incur a significant amount of debt, fail to work for an extended period of time, or does not consult the other spouse when making purchases on joint accounts.
Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13 bankruptcy can wipe out your obligation to pay the loan, but the lender can still retrieve the vehicle if you are not current on your payments.
If homeowners association fees are causing you to consider 
