Answer: The legal answer is that you should declare bankruptcy either in your province of residence, or the province where your assets and debts are located. If your debts are credit cards, your debts are probably administered out the credit card companies head office in Ontario, so that won’t matter.

If you are living in New Brunswick, it is probably easier to file in New Brunswick, so that you are close to your trustee for any meetings that may be required.

Answer: No, when you file bankruptcy you are required to surrender all credit cards. The law is written that way to prevent someone from borrowing money on a credit card when the credit card company did not know about the bankruptcy

Answer: Without knowing what the future will hold, it’s impossible to create a perfect strategy. Here are your options:

First, you could pay whatever you can afford each month. If you can afford $1,500 per month, pay that. It’s possible that over the next few months your business will improve, and you will be able to get caught up in the future.

Your second option, as you mentioned, would be to get a “regular job” where taxes are deducted from your pay each month, so that at the end of the year you don’t owe any taxes. That solves your problem in the future, but does not deal with your old tax debts. It may be that it will take a long time to get caught up with the government.

Your final option would be to file a consumer proposal or personal bankruptcy in Montreal to eliminate your tax debts.

To make your decision, you will need to decide whether or not your business is viable. In other words, in the future will you be able to earn enough to support yourself and to pay your taxes. If you are self employed you should remit your tax installments every month, or every three months; if you are always paying last year’s taxes this year, then your business probably isn’t viable.

Once you have decided on the viability of your business, talk to a Montreal bankruptcy trustee to discuss a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy, and to evaluate if those options are appropriate for you.

Answer: The answer to your question will depend in part on who owes the debts. If the debts are all in your name, the creditors have no way to garnishee your wages while you are on maternity leave, because you have no wages. You could open a new bank account at a new bank, stop paying them, and simply ignore the phone calls.

Your other option would be to file a consumer proposal or declare bankruptcy to eliminate your debts. However, filing a proposal or bankruptcy costs money, so you would be making payments to protect yourself from creditors that can’t garnishee wages until you return to work.

Our best advice would be to speak to a Montreal bankruptcy trustee to review your specific set of circumstances, and then based on that determine which option is best for you.

Answer: Unfortunately if you are behind on your payments, your creditors will continue to call. Most of them now use an automated dialing machine, so if you don’t answer they will call you again in a set period of time. They don’t consider it harassment, since they only count the calls you actually answer.

You have two choices. First, if you believe you will have the money to get them caught up very soon, your best option may be to simply tell them that you will be able to pay them within two weeks, or whatever, and then just keep repeating that information every time they call. Once you pay them, the calls will stop.

The other option, as you suggest, is to do something formal, such as filing a consumer proposal or declaring bankruptcy in Montreal.

If your debts are small, go with the first option. However, if you have no hope to repay your debts, you should speak to a bankruptcy trustee to explore your other options.

I went to meet with the Bank about a debt consolidation loan and they are offering something but almost 2 weeks of my salary will have to go to pay it off and will take me 8 years they say best they can do. I owe about 45K and after 8 years I will have paid 91K with what they are asking. I just do not know if I should try to do this and kill myself doing it or go another way. I would appreciate it if you could tell me your opinion. My x-husband has nothing to do with me or my son and under no circumstances do I want him to find anything about this. Is there another way I can go. I had a friend who filed for bankruptcy in Toronto; I don’t know if I should filed for bankruptcy here in Montreal. Also I have a good job not and do not wish for my employer to find out either.
Thank-you.

Answer: You have presented a good analysis of your situation. You are correct that the first option to consider is to work through your debts on your own. You start by making a personal budget to determine what expenses you can cut to free up more cash to pay your debts. This will also help you understand how much you can afford to repay if you get a debt consolidation loan. The bank has already given you a lot of debt consolidation loans information, so you know the numbers on which to base your decision.

It would appear that it would be very expensive for you to make the payments on the consolidation loan for the next eight years. Given that you know how difficult it is to keep a job during a recession, a big concern would be whether or not you will have un-interrupted income for the next eight years so you can make all of the payments. That’s a big risk.

Another option would be to consider a consumer proposal. In a consumer proposal you make payments over a period of up to five years, but in most cases you are repaying less than the full amount of your debt, so the payments are affordable.

If that’s not possible, a bankruptcy may be necessary, but that’s a last resort.

We suggest you start by using a debt options calculator to evaluate your options, and then contact a Montreal bankruptcy trustee for a free initial consultation to review all of your options.

Answer: No, your assets are your assets, and no-one, including the government, can go after your assets for someone else’s debts. The only exception would be if your spouse has deliberately transferred their assets to you, and then filed bankruptcy in Canada in an attempt to get out of their debts. That would not be permitted.

We suggest you contact a Montreal bankruptcy trustee to review your options and provide you with advice on how to deal with Revenue Canada debts.

Answer: Yes, it is possible to own a vehicle while you are bankrupt. There are certain conditions that apply, so you should consult a Montreal bankruptcy trustee for further information.

Answer: Yes, the list of bankruptcy exemptions in Quebec includes basic appliances.

For more information, or to review your specific list of assets before you decide to file bankruptcy in Montreal, we suggest you arrange a free initial consultation with a Montreal bankruptcy trustee.

Answer: The answer depends on the value of the items, and whether or not there are any liens or loans secured by those assets. For example, if you own a brand new car worth $50,000 with no loans against it, you would not be permitted to keep it if you went bankrupt, unless you were able to give equivalent cash value to the trustee.

Since the rules are complicated, we recommend that you consult a licensed bankruptcy trustee to arrange a no-charge initial consultation to review your specific circumstances.