Expert: Terry Leeders - 7/28/2010

Question
I had a Ch7 discharge in 2004, the lawyers I dealt with said if I need to re-file for Chapter 7 I have to wait six years. Since then many unexpected things happened in my life, such as divorce, being a single parent, foreclosure, loss of employment, etc and there's no way I could keep up with my bills especially with unemployment and soon it will be running out too. I'm not sure what else to do except to file for bankruptcy but now I hear I have to wait eight years before i could file again. Is there anything else I could do or are there any exceptions that I could file sooner since I was told before I could file at six years. I'm desperate and need a lot of help and not sure what else to do.

Answer
Hi and thank you for your question.
The law changed in 2005, upping it from 6 to 8 years between chapter 7 cases.
The only option you have now, is to look into chapter 13, debt consolidation, paying back 10-100% of the debts you have based on disposable monthly income.  Thanks for your question, good luck.