Should I sell my house or file for bankruptcy?

Question

My husband owes banks line of credit ( bad advise from financial person now nowhere to be found) and personal credit at about 15K, what should we do? We have managed to find a buyer for our house for 250k house is worth at least 329k we have good equity of about 160k but due to the market we will loose about 40k and walk away with about 90k. What should we do? should we file bankruptcy at $340.00 per week as per bankruptcy lawyer chp 13 ( we can not manage that hubby only earns about 600 per week average) so we could loose everything maybe end up in chapter 7 i do not want to end up with foreclosure on my credit as well because my name is on our house also. H-E-L-P I have heard that we could get someone, maybe a lawyer to negotiate for us with the banks as they would get about 50 cents on the dollar in bankruptcy anyway?

Answer 1

Sell, don't foreclose or file bankruptcy.  It will follow you forever.  Try to refinance.  There are a lot of options out there, you could talk to a bankruptcy lawyer to find out more options.  Good Luck!!

Answer 2

DON'T FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY, refinance your home...pay off your debt with that money then give them the rest back so that you can just pay it towards your home, we all need our credit

Answer 3

if i were you i would definately talk to a couple lawyers and see if you could negotiate a bankruptcy becaus ei know you will majorly regret it if you sell expecially for less htan you could.....

Answer 4

Have you read up on companies that actually buy your house from you and then you can either rent or buy it back? It may be an option in your situation to avoid bankruptcy. It might be worth contacting one of these companies to see what they can offer and whether it will help. A Quick Sale covers both the UK and US.

Answer 5

Sell the house.  Bankruptcy should be your absolute last resort, you'll have bad credit for 7 yrs.

Answer 6

Sell your house FIRST, get set up in an apartment and make sure you sell anything the banks may seize to sell to pay your creditors. Once you have your apartment, use the house money to pay the rent in advanced and also pay for your car insurance and go get a load of groceries. Basically you have to spend they money you earned from the house sale before the creditors can get their hands on it. Once you file for bankruptcy the creditors will take your house, sell it and also seize any valuables to sell as well.....and use the money to give to the creditors you owe money too. This includes some forms of life insurance as we found out, we had to change my husband's life insur policy and had to get rid of the money we got back in a week before the papers got filed. We paid rent, got clothes and got some supplies. We had rules to follow on how to spend the money too.

Get yourself a good bankruptcy lawyer. We found one that gave us a sliding fee scale. We had our free consult and agreed to sign up, so he told us exactly what to do, when to do it and what not to do. I would say get started on selling your home, it's a tough market. But always follow what your lawyer says first.

This is just my experience with going through bankruptcy. Not being a home owner is our only difference. This is something a good lawyer will help you guys navigate through. I do recommend a lawyer and also filing. Life has been okay since we filed....the economy is very bad and has hurt us a lot. The economy has been far harder on us than our credit scores have been. Mine improved infact, and exceeds my husband's score. Life doesn't end after bankruptcy, the first year may be the hardest but it does get better. Most places that operate based on credit scores like apartments, the managers have told us that in one more year it will be like we never even filed. We filed in 2005. It doesn't ruin your life forever it does not irradicate your credit score to no end. My severe health issues caused us to file, massive hospital debts and not being able to work yet not able to quailify for any assistance shoved us into the hole we got into. So we all got our reasons. It's not the end of the world if you choose to do it. Just make sure you have an excellent lawyer to help you.

I hope you have luck finding what you need. best wishes and always good luck with your search.