My sister has been with a guy for a while and gotten herself into a HUGE mess.

She met this guy, they feel in love and wanted to get married.
He was going to pilot school, saying he will be finished in a few months, be a pilot and make lots of money. He convinces her to co-sign numerous credit cards. She co-signes for furniture financing. They rent an apartment together. HE handles all the money, all the bills, since he is the man in the house, so he said. She is so naïve to go along with all that. She gets pregnant from him too.
Finally all the credit cards are maxed out, bills are overdue. She finds out, exactly how he was handling their finances. He also drops out of school. Now he works in an convenient store.
Well, without going into all the nasty details, they broke up when she was 4 months pregnant.
Most of the credit cards were in both their name, some even only in her name . He initially agreed to pay ONE of them. He hasn't done that either, since she just started to get calls from the collection agency. She has continued to make min. payment on all the other cards as this is all she can afford. All together we are talking about 10K in credit card debt.
Second, the apartment owner were they lived together has started the eviction process since he has not paid rent in some time (she moved out when they broke up 6 months ago). But of course her name in on the eviction papers as well.
And third, the furniture they bought for their apartment. He has all of it now, yet she is on the contract. It's one of these 0% interest until 2010 deals, so most likely problems are going to arise from that in a couple years.

Now the question, is there anything that could be done? Can he be taken to court and possibly ordered to pay half the debt? Or is there just no chance since she was so naïve and co-signed everywhere?

I think the easiest to prove would be that he has the furniture and she might be able to get that off him. When you co-sign you are responsible if they don't pay.
She maybe needs to get everything together and take him to court to see if she can get somewhere with it but I doubt it will get her much help. Especially if he never comes up with money anyway.
Also it might be good if she consolidates all his loans that he stuck her with.

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. See: Chapter 7 bankruptcy (http://www.bankruptcyhome.com/chapter7.htm)

Yeah, we were wondering if this is the way to go.

I understand that in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy her belonging would be liquidated if they are not exempt.

Under Florida law I read, that a car up to $1000 is exempt. Now could they take her car, sell it, give her $1000 and distribute the rest among her creditors?
Important to know is that her and I co-own the vehicle I'm talking about.

As to the car, if you co-own it and it is titled that way, and there is no debt, your sister would have 1/2 interest in the value; my guess is that if her 1/2 interest was in excess of $1,000, that she could 'purchase' the Trustee's interest in the car, perhaps at 50% on the dollar; you will need to check with a practitioner in the area.

They can't touch her car. It is considered a necessity for work. She will have to continue paying for that though. They can't make her sell it (up to a certain value) but since it is shared..

They also wouldn't bother with exempt things which usually consist of personal property
like clothing and tools or things used to make a living.

Bankruptcy Chapter 7 Personal Consumer Creditors File (http://www.creditinfocenter.com/bankruptcy/bkfaq.shtml#13)

Bankruptcy Chapter 7 Exempt Property Credit Debt (http://www.creditinfocenter.com/bankruptcy/bkProperty.shtml)


anything she wants to keep that she makes payments on she doesn't have to include in the bankruptcy but she will still have to make payments on those items.

Thanks a lot for all the help. It looks like she will be filing Chapter 7.
She has already talked to an attorney who would file for $1500 + $300 court fee, but we are going to check if she could somehow find a pro-bono lawyer. In her case as a single mom with hardly any income at the moment maybe it's an option?

Also I'm wondering if we should try to get this done quickly due to the eviction action currently going on with the apartment? Her name is on all the papers (even so she hasn't lived there since 6+ months) but since she signed the lease agreement of course her name is included.
Now I heard that an eviction will be noted in her credit report and could make it very hard or impossible to rent again in the future. Well, her credit is now messed up already anyway, so I'm not sure if the eviction will do any additional harm, but I guess it could?

The bankrupty filling will immediately stop eviction, right?

On the other hand we did send a response to the court. The paper from County Court says "a default can be entered against the tentant on 2/7 if the tenant has not answered the complaint".
I'm pretty sure her Ex has not responded. She however sent a response letter to the judge saying that her name should be removed from the eviction action because she doesn't live there and the landlord knows that. So how can she technically be evicted.
Our point is they can't evict somebody who doesn't live there. They can only sue her for the rent past due which is not going to matter when she filled Chaper 7, right?

jojo55 asks: "The bankrupty filling will immediatly stop eviction, right?"
That is right; the creditor/landlord should be listed in the Chapter 7 petition, and provide the eviction court the Chapter 7 case name, number, and date of filing.