Ask Me Help Desk - Want to file bankruptcy

I'm needing to file for bankruptcy as I can not afford defiency judgement on foreclosure that I had sold for 300k more than bank sold it for as they would not except short sale and forced me into foreclosure with out even giving me my day in court to show judge the sale. Anyway I took job in Canada to put food on the table for my five kids! I do not make anywhere near what I used to, and collections are filing bogus charges against my wife for taking my name off her cars two years before any money issues! Florida attorney says I can't file as I live in CA and CA attorney says I can't file here they will not do it and it would not hold up in the USA anyway. So what can I do? What can the collection agency which holds the note do to me, and is there any way I can just file for bankruptcy? Please help? Thank you

If you take your name off cars and other property, just to hide it from collections, that is not legal, and the collection company can attempt to go after that property, that is their right to at least attempt to, if there is an appearance. So that can go to court.

As to where you can file, you have to meet the residence requirements, if you are living in Canada and working there, you are not currently living in the US to file in the US.

If you hold residence and have a home in the US, you may claim and use that as your residence.

A bank is not required to accept a short sale. You have no case there. You could have sold it short and paid them the balance, but showing a judge you had a sale means nothing legally.

Next if you live in a state where there is no judicial review of foreclosures, there is no hearing for foreclosure, they merely file, give you notice. Then if you don't appeal and ask for a hearing, there is none. You did not get your dad in court, since you did not ask for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

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As to where you can file, you have to meet the residence requirements, if you are living in Canada and working there, you are not currently living in the US to file in the US. ...

OP's ability to file bankruptcy doesn't depend on "residence". Domicile is what matters. In other words, the last place in the US he called home.

In general, the venue can be in any district where the debtor has been domiciled for the greater part of the past 180 days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan5

... Florida attorney says I can't file as I live in CA and CA attorney says I can't file here they will not do it and it would not hold up in the USA anyways....

Makes one wonder if those attorneys ever bothered to read the bankrupty code. :(

I was not in any financial difficulties, my 5 yr term was up they would not refinance, they wanted full note which was over a million! They refused short sale even with me paying the difference. The cars were already in my wife's name and now that issue is over as they had no case. We are honest people and we would never would hide anything. I have found out that there are many others that were victims of these same people and they are now getting congress involved! It is actually much bigger then I realized, and I am working with attorney. I will keep you posted and thank you for your reply.

If you set though some bankrutpcy hearings, you will find a large number of bankruptcy attorneys do fairly poorly.

A few years ago, for this site, I did a list of questions, called several bankruptcy attorney and then discussed it with the bankruptcy hearing officer.

Got a wrong answer on every question from at least one of the people, Got several bad answers on some questions.

I watched and about 1 in 5 had paper work rejected during their first hearing for being filed wrong.. Which is scary, since most use fill in the blank programs that print their filings for them.