My bankruptcy journey begins...

[masscredit]

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@jmw1 wrote:

@masscredit I took another look at the debtor's bar manual for ch13 that's specific to my district.

It appears our trustees take your gross self-employment income and then apply to your personal expenses to come up with your income on the means test. You would need to deposit gross receipts to your business checking account and pay expenses from business checking. Then write a check to yourself for what you need to live on. The GROSS amount of self-employment checks put in your personal checking would be used to determine your disposal income on the means test. So you need to show bank statements for business checking, personal checking and receipts for your personal expenses. On the means test, there are some legitimate personal expenses not allowed vs. schedule J. And I'm guessing none of your business deductions will count on the means test if you've been paying them from personal checking. They're just going to count the gross incoming deposits for the last 6 months and that's your income. You pay the higher of your means test or I/J net disposable.

It's very possible they do it very differently in your neck of the woods.   Just another perspective to consider whether or not your means test result is going to be as favorable as you think it will be. When I hear sub $500 ch13 payments for above medians, I find that they are very unusual and usually have to be pre-planned bankruptcies.

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I have work related expenses such as internet service, cloud storage, avertising and equipment. Plus there are deductions for mileage and home office expenses. The business account is at one bank and my personal account is at another. I was just using a Chapter 13 payment calculator to see what it would say. I got to a point where my expenses exceed what I make so I gave up with that. 

[masscredit]

Seeing that we are getting close the end of the year, I'm going to put this off for a few more months. The two reasons for that are -

My 2021 taxes will show that my income is substancially less than previous years. I'll get them done the beginning of February then file. 

I recently sold the car that was financed. I planned to keep it but the used car market is hot for sellers right now. I had to seperate what I wanted from being realistic. I liked the car but... I couldn't afford it. At this point, most of my food is coming from food pantries. I was able to redo my monthly budget and am now able to live fairly comfortable while still keeping things tight. I will document where the excess money from the sale of the car goes incase they ask. That will mostly be for living expenses, Christmas for my kids and to finish a dental proceedure that has been on hold because of finances. 

The last time I paid on my cards was in January. At this point, I only receive a few calls per week. I was up to about 5-10 per day at one point. I occassionally get letters. Cap 1 is the most active in sending me emails with options. I won't take them but the best so far is 55% of what I owe. 

[masscredit]

I've noticed a couple of hard pulls from PENFED. One was in May and the other in August. I haven't paid them since the beginning of the year and the calls stopped a couple of months ago. The same guy used to leave me at least one message daily. Any reason for these HPs? I could see them maybe doing SPs to see what my credit looks like because they haven't got paid. I thought about disputing them but don't know if I should because that creates contact with them which I don't know if that's what they are looking for.

[anniea4001]

@masscredit did you file for BK and included them?

I know that when I was in the process of filing my BK, a credit union I owed money to and had sued me, pulled my report. I guess to look at my financial profle. 

[masscredit]

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@anniea4001 wrote:

@masscredit did you file for BK and included them?

I know that when I was in the process of filing my BK, a credit union I owed money to and had sued me, pulled my report. I guess to look at my financial profle. 

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I haven't filed yet. I've interviewed a number of BK attorneys. I'm going to file after I get this year's taxes done in February. 

Creditors can do it as a soft pull. A HP usually means the person is trying to obtain new credit. I don't know if it matters but does this make it look like I was trying to do that?

[Shooting-For-800]

I would bet the user agreement says they can pull it whenever they want. 

[MileHigh96]

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@masscredit wrote:

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@anniea4001 wrote:

@masscredit did you file for BK and included them?

I know that when I was in the process of filing my BK, a credit union I owed money to and had sued me, pulled my report. I guess to look at my financial profle. 

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I haven't filed yet. I've interviewed a number of BK attorneys. I'm going to file after I get this year's taxes done in February. 

Creditors can do it as a soft pull. A HP usually means the person is trying to obtain new credit. I don't know if it matters but does this make it look like I was trying to do that?

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I think some credit unions are different on pulling credit.  For example, a little more than a month ago I applied for a savings account at NASA FCU and they did na hard pull on my CR just for that.  Wasn't applying for credit or anything, just a savings account and they did a HP for that.  Also, when I was in the process of getting my BK filed, a collection agency did a hard pull on my credit.   So I guess it all depends on the institution.

[rostrow416]

I had this happen when I fell behind on a car loan with Teachers FCU.  They randomly pulled my report before moving to repo my car.

[FinStar]

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@masscredit wrote:

I've noticed a couple of hard pulls from PENFED. One was in May and the other in August. I haven't paid them since the beginning of the year and the calls stopped a couple of months ago. The same guy used to leave me at least one message daily. Any reason for these HPs? I could see them maybe doing SPs to see what my credit looks like because they haven't got paid. I thought about disputing them but don't know if I should because that creates contact with them which I don't know if that's what they are looking for.

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Echoing some of the above comments, and as per their CCA, they are within their legal right to HP.  Disputing them will be a fruitless effort, especially given the status of the delinquent account.  The HPs, in this situation, doesn't translate into you applying for 'new' credit.

[masscredit]

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@FinStar wrote:

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@masscredit wrote:

I've noticed a couple of hard pulls from PENFED. One was in May and the other in August. I haven't paid them since the beginning of the year and the calls stopped a couple of months ago. The same guy used to leave me at least one message daily. Any reason for these HPs? I could see them maybe doing SPs to see what my credit looks like because they haven't got paid. I thought about disputing them but don't know if I should because that creates contact with them which I don't know if that's what they are looking for.

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Echoing some of the above comments, and as per their CCA, they are within their legal right to HP.  Disputing them will be a fruitless effort, especially given the status of the delinquent account.  The HPs, in this situation, doesn't translate into you applying for 'new' credit.

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The HPs stay will be on the report for 2 years. Only have a negative impact on my scores for 1. And in the end, I think the HPs are the least of my concerns scorewise.