Expert: John Hall - 8/27/2005

Question
John,
Thank you for your time!
I have AIDS and am on permanent Social Security Disabilty.  I receive $769/mo plus I receive $839/mo from a long Term Disability policy I had when I was employed.  These two forms of Disability income are my only sources of income.  I live in Oregon and both payments are automatically deposited each month.
I was unable to continue to make my monthly payments on several credits cards.  I had been making all payments (min amt due) on time until they all decided I had too much credit and arbitrailly raised my interest rates to 27.9%.  This was back in 2000.  I stopped making payments and hired a lawyer who suggested that I not file bankruptcy because my income is all from disability which is exempt.  The only property I own is a home in JTR with my partner who also is on SSD and the home does not have enough equity when split between the two of us to make a claim against due to an Oregon Homestead Act.  A letter was sent by my attorney to each of these companies stating such and most of them have pretty much backed off. I get a letter from time to time from a diffferent collection agency to which I send copies of the original lawyer's letters and they sell the account off to another collection agency.  However, one of them did file for a judgement against me and obtained such.  One year ago I received a copy of a writ to garnishment they sent to my bank.  I filed a challenge to garnishment, went to court on the specified date and neither the collection agency or their local appointed lawyer showed up.  The judge approved my challenge.  No money had been taken so that was the end of that.  Now, one year later, this last week, while I was in the hospital, the same agency and law office once again filed a writ of garnishment with my bank just one day before one of my payments hit.  Luckily, my partner was watching the accounts and was able to transfer my payment immediately into his account.  My bank did charge $75.00 in garnishment fees but with some persuading, my partner was able to get them to reverse them.  I now, however, have to go through the whole challenge process again.  I will do this alone this time as I can't afford to pay my lawyer again and the process is simple.  However, how can I stop them from continuing to try and garnish me?  In the past when they threatened to garnish, my lawyer sent them several notices about the nature of my income and that it is judgement proof and offered the opportunity to them to see me in person for a discovery hearing, but they have ignored all these facts.  Is this harrassement?  If they were to ever actually get my payment just as it hit I'd be in DEEP trouble, unable to make my housing and medical obligations.  What can I do?  Can I ask the judge at the Challenge hearing to order them to stop?  If so...how would I go about this.
Thanks!!
Rick Monroe


Answer
Good morning Mr. Monroe:

Harassment or not, you still have a judgment hanging over your head that I would think you would rather just completely eliminate if at all possible so there was NO chance of anybody even threatening you with garnishment, collection, etc.  On the facts stated in your question, it  might be possible for you to completely discharge that debt (and any other non-secured non-priority debts) through bankruptcy -  but to save yourself a lot of extra trouble, you would have to do that right away because of the changes in the law coming into effect in a matter of days.  I say “it might be possible” because I can't say for sure without knowing some more specific facts, but there is nothing that you have said so far that would disqualify you.  If you call me, I can explain this more in detail -  and I won't charge you just to talk on the phone.    My number is 817  645-3167    I have done several banrkruptcies in Oregon over the past year and none of them has had any further problems -  plus the effect on your credit will not be near as bad as the creditors claim on television ads.  This will give you an opportunity to make a fresh start insofar as debt is concerned.  Also , from what you have said so far, it doesn't appear that you would lose anything in the process.   Lastly, if you decided to do this, I could prepare the papers for you and you would save yourself a lot of money as compared to if you hired a lawyer in your area to do it for you (if I prepared the papers for you, I would sign off on them not as your attorney bs the one that prepared the papers – there is a provision of the Bankruptcy Code that allows other people – with a law degree or not – to prepare your papers – kind of like the H&R Bock people do with taxes -  I would indicate that I have a law degree but that I am not licensed to practice law in Oregon -  it isn't like we have to hide anything from anybody)   If I did this for you, I would charge you 100 dollars.  Also, you would have to pay the  court filing fee to the court clerk, but there is a provision of law that allows you to pay that filing fee in installments – that fee is 209 dollars, but depending on the  Oregon's bankruptcy court's policy, it is likely that they would not make you pay anything down if you agreed to pay the 209 dollars in installments over the next four months after  you file.  The most I have ever seen any court charge is 50 dolllars for a down payment, but most allow you to file without a down payment.    However, you get the benefit of the bankruptcy right away, as soon as you file, even if the filing fee has not yet been paid in full.  If you did file bankruptcy, you would only have to go to court one time for a hearing that lasts about 60 seconds.  Basically you just tell the court everything you put on the papers is true.   

Call me if you like -  We could make this happen very quickly if you like -  like I could get you the papers today and you could file tomorrow -  and if you did that you would go to the hearing sometime in Mid October and officially receive your discharge in the mail around Christmas (no sooner than 60 days after the hearing).  

I will be at the number listed above most of the day today if you want to call – or send me an email at J_H14@hotmail.com   with your phone number and I will call you right back so you don't have to pay for the call.

In the meantime, if you are considering this, don't pay any of your large bills for utilities, or taxes or credit cards or anything else -  depending on the specific facts of your situation, it is very possible that any of those might be discharged so if you pay money towards them now and do a bankruptcy, that would be wasted money you could have kept.  I can explain more specifics if  we talk on the phone.