I had this same thing happen to me. I was renting a very nice duplex & the same people who owned the duplex also owned an apartment complex that was down the street. One day, the property manager showed up at my door telling me that the property was up for sale & I needed to find another place within 30 days! I had 2 small children at the time so this wasn't going to be easy! I found out that the reason the property was being sold so unexpectedly was because the owners had not been paying property taxes so the property was seized. There wasn't much I could do but move. Luckily I found a place within the 30 days. Several people told me I could sue the owners but I didn't bother because they ended up going bankrupt, anyway. I also did get my security deposit back before I moved so I decided to just let it go. As Dilly_Dally said, maybe you can contact an attorney to see if there's anything that can be done. The owners will owe you a security deposit. They cannot keep it unless there is damage to your unit. Good luck with everything.

Hi fbresnah, Before you step in the bucket of personal bankruptcy, I'd urge you to determine what you REALLY expect to get out of it. Bankruptcy is an effective tool for protecting income producing assets (like business inventory, machinery, and investments) from being siezed by creditors, thereby preventing any possibility of recovery. Many (most?) people who use personal bankruptcy have no income producing assets to protect, and thus take a much worse medicine than the problem they are actually addressing. Also, most folks who use personal bankruptcy are primarily attempting to "stop the noise" of the creditors & collectors who are relentlessly harrassing & pursuing them. If you fall into the category of those who have no income producing assets to protect, you can often get FAR better results, with FAR fewer negative side effects by using alternative strategies. Ken and I have gone from intense adversaries in our opinions to what I believe is allies in the concern for the common man who gets stuck in the mechanism of the public credit game. I know that at his core he cares deeply about people, and I think he knows that about me too. Together (or not exactly together, sometimes,) we've dived deep into various aspects of this topic... and some great stuff has come out of it. I'd invite you to surf a few of the following threads. Some examples of misery sustained, and misery conquered! http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/finance/msg0914195427209.html?4 http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/finance/msg081156017751.html?15 http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/finance/msg1122145213469.html?49 http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/finance/msg0811432230158.html?29 http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/finance/msg010459412351.html?5 All the best to you with your challenges, Dave

"Fortunately we never used my income for daily living expenses. We are, however, missing our ability to make capital purchases." If I may be so bold, what did you use your income for? Did you use it to establish college funds for the kids and nest eggs for you and your spouse? That's the smart way of doing it, and I know a few people who have managed to do that, even where I am, in Washington, DC. What amazes me is that I own a townhome in one of the more expensive area of the nation, and I manage it on a single salary. I'll admit that my ex-wife and I bought when the market was low, but after she and I split I kept the house. It was EXTREMELY tight at times, and I'm still carrying too much credit card debt that I'm working on erasing. There were some really tight times when I truly thought I was going to have to either get rid of the house or plunge into the bankruptcy option. Then my job situation changed for the MUCH MUCH better, I'm sitting on nearly $150,000 equity in my home (housing prices in my community have gone NUTS in the last 3 years), I'm socking 23% of my paycheck away into a 401K (the maximum I can go) plus more into other funds, and I'm still keeping ahead on all of my other payments. I use my credit cards too much, there's no doubt about that, but I keep it to a dull roar, and over the past two years have erased about $5,000 of $12,000 in credit card debt and moved much of it to cards that have interest rates at or below 10%. Living within one's means isn't difficult for most people. It takes discipline and EDUCATION on the wise use of credit. That's the kicker. The credit card companies that were approving everyone and their 1-year-old brother (the agressive marketing of revolving credit to college and even high school students should be illegal, or heavily curtailed in my opinion) largely have only themselves to blame for their losses no matter how much they whine about it. They weren't educating people about credit use, and it's hurt a LOT of people. One of the things that I did with Navy Federal was write member educational materials on credit use.

Arkansas is not a community property state. Bankruptcy is Federal law, but exemptions are state law. See a Bankruptcy attorney together, they will tell you honestly the effect, but make sure its an attorney and not some "paralegal" firm that will not be accurate. The "paralegal's" cannot go to court and often encourage people to lie and are often sanctioned by the court because of it. Since Bankruptcy is federal law, even in Los angeles there is only one Bankruptcy court (several judges) and attorneys don't want to get involved with somebody whose bankruptcy is going to be dismissed because you shouldn't have filed in the first place. Its a lot of extra work and the bankruptcy court regulates how much attorneys can charge more than any other field. We used to get cases where the husband wanted the wife to file or vice versa --evidently dreaming that it would not affect both of them. Good luck on that. The new Bankruptcy law was bought and paid for by the Credit Card companies so you can bet that getting rid of her debt without affecting you is most unlikely, as your income will be used in the calculations as to whether you can do a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13 (which is a payback) You have a house,and have something to lose, so go talk with a Bk attorney; you need to know the value of your house and the amount of exemption that is allowed in your state. Myfask is correct that some companies who are hiring, will look at your credit rating--but they are looking for a large amount of debt. Employees who steal or embezzle usually owe a great deal of money. If you just filed BK, you don't need to steal because the credit card companies aren't calling you everyday or attempting to garnish your wages. Credit card companies are pretty aggressive trying to get you to pull more cards after the BK---your credit is not gone forever. Some companies even solicited the attorneys to recommend their special "after bankruptcy secured cards" Yes the legal fees for attorneys have gone up a lot--I got out of the field because the new laws make the attorney responsible for the client's errors. If they didn't know how much they owed how in the world would I know. Unless your wife practiced fraud; buying furniture, art, etc. and selling it, or ran up more debt than normal just before filing,credit card companies do not contest the BK. There is enough fraud out there that they don'thave to go after somebody who is a typical filer.