Joint Bankruptcy
My spouse and are in extreme financial difficulty.
He owes $90K on an unsecured line of credit. It was an engineering student line of credit offered by a major bank to students enrolled in the University of Toronto engineering program. He also owes 15K in government student loans.
I owe $65K unsecured debt on credit cards.
Can we do a joint bankruptcy? Do you know the advantages to this?
Also, we find this very stressful – is there a chance this will go beyond the usual 9 month period?
We would like to get this problem solved as quickly as possible.
You may file a joint bankruptcy if “all or substantially all” of your debts are similar. Based on the information you have provided, I don’t think you may file jointly.
I am a little concerned that your spouse was able to obtain a $90K line of credit – usually a debt of that size requires collateral and/or co-signers. You might want to look into it a further to make certain that it is an unsecured debt.
The next step – contact a local trustee and ask for a consultation. They will be able to tell you whether or not you may file jointly.