Bankruptcy, have to declare?

[Anonymous]

Do I have to formally declare bankruptcy?  Lost two of my three jobs a couple of months ago due to illness.  I could not make the minimum payments on my 2 credit cards, so simply stopped paying on them. (One card is about 13K, the other 500.)   All I own is a 20-year-old truck and a refurbished laptop (and some minor stuff like books, etc.).  Even paying an attorney to do the bankruptcy thing would be a financial problem for me right now.  Spoke with both banks and explained why I was no longer able to make payments. What is likey to happen? (Also, I live in a very remote area and no additional jobs are available; don't even have enough money to move to a better area.)

[Anonymous]

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ChristopherAS wrote:

Do I have to formally declare bankruptcy?  Lost two of my three jobs a couple of months ago due to illness.  I could not make the minimum payments on my 2 credit cards, so simply stopped paying on them. (One card is about 13K, the other 500.)   All I own is a 20-year-old truck and a refurbished laptop (and some minor stuff like books, etc.).  Even paying an attorney to do the bankruptcy thing would be a financial problem for me right now.  Spoke with both banks and explained why I was no longer able to make payments. What is likey to happen? (Also, I live in a very remote area and no additional jobs are available; don't even have enough money to move to a better area.)

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Have you tried calling the CC companies to work something out like payment plan.

Message Edited by mjbfan79 on 08-16-2008 11:23 AM

[Anonymous]

Christopher - you should discuss with a bk attorney.   But if you do end up filing a BK, it will definitel be a chapter 7 and you will be discharged in about 120 days.   You most likely will be able to keep all you have, based on your comments.

Good luck.  And read the BK section here.  It will help.   There are other forums too.  Just google bankruptcy forum and see what comes up.