Overview
If you are reading this you’re probably anxious, nervous, and overwhelmed. Most likely you have not paid your mortgage in a few years and you have been receiving court notices from your mortgage company suing you for the unpaid amount. Within the last month or so you probably received a notice from the Richmond County Sheriff’s office informing you that your home will be sold at a foreclosure sale either tomorrow or very soon thereafter and within the notice it probably informs you that you will have to leave the premises and all of your belongings behind before the sale date. If this sounds like you, then you have come to the right place.
Filing a Bankruptcy Petition
Many times clients come to us looking for a bankruptcy attorney the night or day before their house is being sold or auctioned off. For whatever reason, after years of not paying their mortgage and living in their home, they decide that they want to keep their home and begin paying their mortgage again. Fortunately, as long as the house has not actually been sold then we can help.
Why File a Bankruptcy Petition?
When you file Bankruptcy in New York and all other states an automatic stay goes into effect. The automatic stay prohibits your mortgage lender from going forward with the foreclosure sale. Thus, depending on how imminent your foreclosure sale date is, we could file a skeleton bankruptcy petition. A skeleton bankruptcy petition can delay the foreclosure sale and allow more time to delay or stop the sale.
What is a Skeleton Bankruptcy Petition?
A skeleton bankruptcy petition is a bare-boned petition. This is usually filed prior to a foreclosure sale date or an eviction. This is primarily done when you do not have time to complete all of the required bankruptcy forms and schedules but need to file immediately for some pending reason.
In New York, the bankruptcy courts allow you up to 14 days to file the rest of the paperwork. This allows the person filing for bankruptcy to reap the benefits of the Automatic Stay thus, stopping the foreclosure sale and allowing you time to get the rest of the paperwork at a later date.
Requirements to File an Emergency Bankruptcy Petition
A fully completed bankruptcy petition can sometimes be fifty pages or more. While a skeleton bankruptcy petition can be filed by filing an abbreviated version of the petition with general information which states your identifying information, the chapter you plan to file for, and some other general information. Moreover, you will have to complete a schedule that lists which creditors you plan to include in your bankruptcy.
Another document you will have to submit with your bankruptcy petition is your certification that you completed your online counseling course. This must be done prior to having the petition filed.
How Much Does It Cost To Stop Foreclosure?
If you can get most of the required paperwork to us prior to your house being sold at the foreclosure sale we have the ability to stop your home from being sold. However, it is important to understand that although we can stop the pending sale of your home by filing a bankruptcy petition in the Bankruptcy Court you must have the funds to pay for the bankruptcy before we do so.
Filing Fee and Attorney’s Fee
Many times clients have a sale date pending and have no money put aside but want us to file a bankruptcy petition for them to stop the foreclosure sale of their home. Unfortunately, all of the work that we put into stopping the sale of your home so quickly is time-consuming and time-sensitive. Since we are in such a time crunch, we usually have to stop doing whatever we had planned to do that day and tend to your case to ensure that your bankruptcy gets filed in time. Thus, it is important to have funds set aside that you can pay the filing fee and some if not all of the attorney’s fees.
Contact Us for Free Consultation
Karra Kingston and William Bonomo are leading New Jersey and New York Bankruptcy attorneys. Karra L. Kingston Esq. has helped many people facing foreclosures. If you feel that bankruptcy may be the right solution call today.