My mother is 73 years old and she has 30,000.00 in credit card debt. She has depleted her savings and gets $490. A month in social security. She owns a home in a cooperative in NJ and can't get a reverse mortgage because Nj doesn't allow that on cooperatives. She was advised not to go bankrupt because she would have to sell her home. She won't sell it. She was also advised to not pay the credit card debt and to send a letter to the cc companies stating that she cannot pay and to just leave it at that. I am at my wits end as to how to help her I can't afford to pay her bills and mine. Can someone tell me what the best thing to do is? Thanks.

First of course someone should have been involved long before she got 30,000 in debt, that is an issue she has to deal with.

But this is a very simple issue at this point,

She can't pay them if she wanted to, she does not make enough to pay utilities and food hardly.

So just don't pay them. They may or may not, get a judgement attach any bank accounts and perhaps put a lien on the property, but that is the worst they can do.

Now if her social security is on direct deposit, they can attack the bank account once the check is deposited, but can not garnish the actual check, so she may need to go back to a physcial check and pay bills with money orders and not have a checking account

I agree with Chuck.

Have her stop paying all together, simply because she can not possibly afford to pay it.

They cannot take her house, but when she dies, the house will be sold and the entire amount most likely will go to the credit card companies.

And Chuck brings up a good point about the cheques/bank account.

HI,
I agree with the answers before mine.
Please don't sign anything yourself with the credit card company. It could possibly make you responsible for all this debt!
Don't worry about trying to help your Mom pay it off, because you can't, and it's not your responsibility, as long as it's in her name only.

Just one question, why is bankruptcy not an option?

Good point talaniman, why does she not make herself bankrupt ! Yea it will screw her credit rating for some time, but its got to be better then being in loads of debt...

Thank you everyone for your input. Just for the record--I was involved in her finances--she was very good at hiding certain things so that I would not get mad. Also she can't declare bankruptcy because she will lose her house and I think that might just kill her.