Don't Bother Showing up at the Sheriff Sale in Lititz Tomorrow

At 2pm today, we met with our bankruptcy attorney - A mouse click on "Submit" and I now have a Docket Number.  This is the only thing that could keep the bank from taking over our building at Sheriff Sale TOMORROW!

My story is long, and it spans 3 years.  Here are the facts that affected me the most severely and created the need for bankruptcy protection:

• We defaulted on a loan in March 2009.  
• The bank filed a lawsuit against us for a very inflated amount.  
• We paid back tons over the last 3 years, but they kept adding interest, fees, penalties, and flat out forgot to credit us with $46,000 paid against this loan.  This was paid from the sale of my husband's beloved cabin in the woods. 
• We worked with the bank over the last 3 years, reached agreements, made $1800 monthly payments. We are still waiting for an accounting of how and where those payments were applied, after asking many, many times. 
• When our latest agreement expired, the bank wanted an extra $1500 to extend the agreement - we call this "Blood Money"
• Our attorney informed us of this demand, as well as his demand for a $2,000 retainer.  We couldn't pay both of those, and also our $1800 monthly payment - all due immediately.  No retainer, no attorney.  He dropped us like a brick.  He never responded to the bank's demand and would not reply to our emails.

I think everyone just got tired of dealing with us.

Here's the real pisser.  The bank knew all along that our attorney made a very simple, but fatal mistake - He never responded  to the original lawsuit in court.  All along, all the bank had to do was to follow up on that lawsuit.  Even though we had worked our asses off for the last 3 years to satisfy them and try to keep them whole, they were granted a default judgment for the full amount of the original lawsuit.   They immediately acted on this judgment and set up the sheriff sale.


I wish we had the money to sue him for legal malpractice.

For now, at least, we get to keep the property and stay in business.  Our future is very uncertain.  I'm afraid we will be forced to eventually sell the property, then we will never be able to dig out of this and will have to go to a chapter 7 bankrutpcy. 

I can't wait to go to work tomorrow and see who shows up for the sheriff sale.