Need advice

[InMichigan]

I will try to make this as brief as possible, but here is my story: 2 years ago my husband's employer changed him from f/t to seasonal. He is now laid off 5 months a year. We were able to make ends meet as I made enough money to cover the shortage. The beginning of this year my employer cut my hours and we used our savings than our credit cards until I got a 2nd job to keep our heads above water. Well I lost my job in Oct and was unemployed, except my p/t job. After 2 months of p/t my employer offered me f/t and I took it at a 40% pay cut. Unfortunately this left us unable to make our house payment. I tried calling CW and was told we did not have sufficient income to modify my loan. Therefore I called my MI company MGIC. MGIC is working hard to help us, but my husband is freaking out. Here is why: Even with the modification we would still be unable to make our payments if we continue to pay our credit cards. MGIC suggested I contact a BK attorney to file against the credit cards. The BK attorney said I could not file against the credit cards as I am not making my house payment and currently living rent free and so I have sufficient income to pay the credit cards. So after speaking with MGIC they are trying to work out an agreement that would modify my loan and then I could file BK. The way they are trying to get this approved is through using my husbands employed income, otherwise we would not qualify. The problem is my husband is only employed for 7 months a year and for 2.5 months we actually have less income than when he is unemployed because we have children in f/t child care at $1000 a month. My husband is afraid to go through this whole mod thing when paying the bills is dependant on us filing BK. I agree to a certain extent, but first of all I want to keep my house, plus I am afraid that MGIC will slap me with a judgement for the deficiency. P.S. I work at a mortgage company so if the MI company were to file a garnishment etc it will put my job in jeopardy... Any suggestions?

[Moe Bedard]

Hi InMichigan,


Welcome to the forum and thank you for joining................
Before having to file a BK, have you considered talking to a debt management counselor first to see if they may be able to help you.....
Here is the link...........
Consumer Credit Counseling Service :: Debt Management Services :: Consolidate Debt

[InMichigan]

I did talk to CCC and they suggested I give up the house as my interest rates and payments were good already. They actually suggested I try a short sale on the house as the house was more than we can afford and they felt that the issue was the house not the credit.

[gray517]

when i lost my job in june we had to make a decision to stop paying something, with the job loss we couldn't pay our high mortgage, so in order to keep the cars and pay basic living expenses we opted to stop paying credit cards. our car payments are pretty much current now and we just got a modification to a much lower rate thru the services of Naca. our original plan was to try and fix this credit mess, but now hubby has taken 4 pay cuts, the last one this week the worse and i have not been able to find full time work, so i think we will end up filing bankrupcty on our credit card debt but waiting for the new adminstration to finish up thier plans as it may be possible to get principal reduction with that in the future. you may want to try naca their whole process takes abit but its worth it, they negotiate with your lender to get you an affordable payment