I am currently in a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy and want to come out of this without ending up back in a mess (garnishments, yes kiddies the govt will do it in a heartbeat) My husband and I both have them his is about $22,000 mine is $36,000. I know, I know but I want to get them caught up. What happened was I filled out consolidation paperwork and waited for that to happen, in the meantime we moved and didn't get the default notices, by the time we knew anything and called them to say hey wait a minute, they said we were in a limbo area that said pay a few thousand and catch up or wait and default then use a program. Well, after that I had some health problems and couldn't work. My husband was working 2 jobs to make ends meet, we have 4 kids and get no assistance of any kind. So we call them and they tell us we can rehab for this payment amount which was way more than we could afford. I decided that I needed to go back to work. That lasted about 2 months, I can't handle it right now. I won't get into my med issues but thats the jist of why I can't work, so my $36,000 degree isn't doing a thing for me.
They started garnishing my husbands wages at Christmas time That hurt since we have 4 kiddos to buy for. We got evicted, our cars got repo'd it was a mess that led us to file bk. I asked the attorney about a medical discharge on the loans he said not in the south east. If we lived in the northeast it might happpen. This all has me so stressed. I don't know how to get these on some sort of track and the minute we are out of bk they'll start the nightmare again. I would like to be able to get well enough to go back to work in a few years, but the way I see t now, what I'd pay for childcare and if they garnish my wages I wouldn't make anything.
So... I want to do what I can while in bk to get it so when we are out of it these are straight, but I need it to be affordable. Rehab would be almost $1000 a month and we just can't afford that right now. The financial situation gets more indepth but I'll spare you the reading.
I can't consolidate (they told me after you default you can never consolidate), I can't afford a rehab, what is left? I just want the nightmare to be over and get my life together before I die. I want to buy a house so my kids have a home to come home to. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

True, but who enforces those standards? People, right? You think the region a person is in has no bearing on how the standards are applied? You think all bankruptcy judges apply the standards in the same way? Ever heard of circuit splits?

I'm not saying the attorney was right, but he may not have been blowing smoke either. Judges and trustees are not computers. An experienced attorney should be able to give guidance tailored to his or her jurisdiction.

WHile I like the fact that "legally" my attorney is wrong saying they can't try to discharge my loans for medical reasons or undue hardship because of where I live, the fact it the "legal" system is so corrupt. You scratch mine I'll scratch yours. I did my homework before consulting an attorney, I know what's legal and whats not, but the fact is the attorneys want to keep the judges happy so they don't push buttons on certain issues. I could get into a loooonnnggggg rant on all my rights that were violated that my attorney laughed at. WHat I lost thanks to their inability to represent me and what I get for my $5,150 I'm paying them. I call it periodic letters, unreturned phone calls and someone to play on their myspace page when we go to court......

When I get some spare time maybe I'll post it in the bk forum.

It was AES that said no consolidation. What I was hoping for was since i lost everything that I was trying to keep by filing ch 13, i can't do a 7 because of a past one that is 6 mo from the drop off date per new law. I had a crappy x-husband.... nuff said. Anyway, I haven't approached the attorney about this so who knows what he'll say but there is the hardship discharge. Currently we are paying 0% of our creditors, we have no monet to pay them and our attorney and our nice HUGE car payment that we have no thanks to BOTH of our cars being repo'd 1 day pre-filing because it tool the atttny 5 weeks to file from the time they received everything. We had to take what we could get since we got financed post filing and the interest rate is 28%. Anywho..... all we are paying is the flippin lawyer and all we are gaining is protection of student loan garnishment. If I knew we could get them worked out, I'd ask about the hardship. Our bk payment is $120, the income contingent plan payment calculator said approx $200 for me and hubby together. So that $80 more and our money is going somewhere and we can get back on the road to getting our life back together. Education is everything in this world but when your student loans cripple your ability to survive, there is something sadly wrong.