riding out debt collection until january chapter 13 filing

[snodrop13]

What is the name of your state?NY
We were recently advised by an attorney to file chapter 13 in january after we complete our 2004 taxes. We (husband and wife) originally sought legal advise for chapter 7 for our unsecured cc debt but were told as wage earners we were not qualified - additionally we were advised that our growing tax debt was much more of a concern, we expect to owe approx 24000 to the IRS in January. We are currently on good terms with the IRS, paying them 222 a month. We went to a lawyer because although we were paying monthly on our cc debt it was growing anyway and starting to get away from us. We wanted to do something because we feared collection actions from creditors despite our best efforts. Anyway we were advised to wait until January, stop paying our bills (unsecured credit card bills) now and everything would be taken care of after our tax filing. We are nervous about not paying our bills and don't want to be dragged into court before we are able to get chapter 13 protection...we will probably be 3 or 4 moths past due before all is said and done. The lawyer advised us to give any creditors that called his phone number (we have already paid 1000 toward the chapter 13 filing). I am a nervous wreck and even though i am being told to relax I can't. Should I still pay these creditors something?

 

[Ladynred]

I wouldn't, there is no need. They're not going to sue you until the accounts are charged-off (6 months of non-payment) anyway and even then it could take months before they sue, if ever.

BTW, being a wage earner does NOT mean you have to file Ch 13, but you do have to have wages in order to file Ch 13.

 

[snodrop13]

We have 4 accounts held by citibank, one has gone to Rubin and Rothman who has in turn served us witha summons that we answered in city court. We have not heard back from them yet but expect to very soon. We haven't been billed by citibank for 2 of the other 3 in a couple months but have not yet been contacted by any collection agency yet about these (we expect to). We are still getting bills from citibank for the 4th. If we should get a court date from citibank from the first acct should we try to avoid court and pay them something until January? All 4 of these accounts are accounts that were initially 20 or 30 dollars over the limit 4 years ago, (we have held them for 15 years in good standing until that point) we paid the minimum payment every month didn't use the cards and now all their balances have more than doubled without use. Our main goal is to stay out of court until January.