A date is set up for what is called the creditors' meeting. This is where you meet up with your lawyer at a courthouse or a chosen place with a bunch of other people who sit in a room and wait to be called to come before the judge.
Now you do have to pay for credit counseling online. Before the meeting and then a 2nd class after this meeting. Be sure and check with your lawyer as to which is court approved or recommended. Then that certificate has to be sent to your lawyer upon completion.
Both husband and wife need to be there at the creditor's meeting and you can only reschedule this date in an emergency or really good reason.
Sitting before the judge, he asks you a few questions, first stating your ssn and other personal data, name and address and he asks to see your state ID. He will then ask you a few questions pertaining to your case, reason why you are filing, making sure you don't have anything extra not stated on the forms that your lawyer filled out etc.
You will have to pay court fees as well and we set up the lawyer's fee in payments which was really nice.
What is funny is that it costs you money to claim bankruptcy which is saying you don't have money. What a conundrum that can be!
So then at this creditor's meeting, this is the chance for your creditors to show up or send a letter to protest or seek to get you to keep their debt or challenge you or whatnot. Usually they do not show up and did not for us. Although we did get one company that wanted us to pay for a few items we had purchased a year before and so we had come to an agreement with them about paying a smaller amount than what they were looking for.
After this, the lawyer will file the papers as the judge signed them and we signed them and that is that. It takes about 30 days or so afterwards and then boom, done.
Credit scores fell but within just less than 30 days, the numbers rose right back up again. And then the ads and offers will arrive in the mail looking for you to sign up with them and of course those interest rates will be very high. The reason they do this is cause they all know you can't file bankruptcy again for another 7 years.
This was a painful process mostly for me as I had a hard time not paying my bills. But the lawyer made it a smooth and easy process.
Now the phone doesn't ring from any of those companies and such a huge burden has been lifted off our shoulders and it feels so strange. I did feel bad a great deal for doing that to those companies and most of them I did like and hated to do it but with having been let go like that from my job with no notice or warning, I had no choice, sadly enough. I would have paid them all off this past year if I had had my job still, that was my plan. But like all good plans you know....it happens.
I look forward to the day I make more money than I ever did before. :)
This really sunk home what my dad always tried to instill in me and I heard him and felt his presence throughout this whole process. What used to be a shameful thing however, no longer is these days. I still hated it cause of how he raised me, but there was nothing else I could have done. It was a hard lesson to relearn. Now, it's cash or saving up for what we want and no more charging anything unless it can be paid for quickly. It has slowed us down a lot as to renovations and upgrading things here but it is nice to know we don't owe anyone for what we do at this point. It's a good feeling to be debt free aside from the house and car. I learned a good and valuable lesson.
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