Clarendon Hills Bankruptcy Attorney Answers Common Questions

Can I keep my home?  You can keep your home as long as you’re current with the payments, as long as you have the escrow paid up, there’s no escrow shortage, meaning that there are no taxes owed, as long as the insurance is paid up.  But most importantly, in a Chapter 7 case, you have to make sure that there isn’t enough equity.  This is done by taking comparative analysis of recent sales in the neighborhood and subtracting the mortgages, subtracting what homestead exemptions the debtors are eligible for, and then the cost of sale.  

It’s a case by case analysis.  No two cases are exactly similar.  So it depends on whether you’re up to date with the mortgages, the taxes, and the insurance and whether or not there’s any equity in the property.  In a Chapter 13, you get to keep the property as long as you make payments that would give creditors as much as they would have received had you filed a Chapter 7.