Emigrating with debt?

RUV says on Feb 12, 2008, 21:09:

Have you tried talking to the banks that hold the student loans? You should be able to apply for a deferment. This should give you some time, before you have to pay them back. As for the rest of the debt it sounds like you are not planing on paying these debts.

If it is only 5-6k, you should just pay that off before you leave.

RAAAY says on Feb 12, 2008, 21:25:

Morally wrong..............

As a practical matter ........running out on 5 / 6k is silly. Burning bridges is never a good idea.

What are " miscellaneous bills "...??

What happens if you need to return to the States permanantly......and you have screwed up your credit ?

Short answer......it's a stupid thing to do.......you'll regret it.

.

.........Its useless to argue with ignorance

jonas says on Feb 12, 2008, 21:34:

Then again, if you burn bridges you know where you are going, you know you won´t step back...

What I have, I do not want to lose, but Where I am I do not want to stay, but those I love, I do not want to leave, but those I know I no longer want to see, but Where I die, I do not want to go;I want to stay where I have never been

jonas says on Feb 12, 2008, 21:36:

and morally your captain was wrong marching into Iraq... so WTF, just try to never grow up

What I have, I do not want to lose, but Where I am I do not want to stay, but those I love, I do not want to leave, but those I know I no longer want to see, but Where I die, I do not want to go;I want to stay where I have never been

Mario says on Feb 12, 2008, 21:43:

"your captain was wrong marching into Iraq"

Just because the guy happens to have been placed in the White House, doesn't make him anyone's "captain", unless you're in the U.S. military. Bush has never been my "captain" - OR - my president. Only my embarrassment when I talk to people from other places.

And now we have 4 more, each of whom is vying for the top spot so they can (quite assuredly) embarrass us all in the near future.

Peter (Moderator) says on Feb 13, 2008, 00:07:

I'm not quite sure what the consequences are, but one that comes to mind is that it'll ruin your credit score, so you won't be able to get a loan in the future as easily might you want one..

Poor but snappy

Frank Rizzo says on Feb 13, 2008, 00:56:

Skyler, you are probably very young. You may want to live there forever, your views may change. God, I wish I could go back and make certain decisions over. This really sounds like that type of deal to me. Your debt is not huge by any standard to have outstanding collections on your name. Please talk to your parents or very close family about this..for good solid advice.

Think it through, even if you spend an extra year in the states to pay it off, etc. In any matter, good luck.

Andy S says on Feb 13, 2008, 03:53:

I am doing the same thing and emigrating, and I battled for ages with whether or not to run out on debts. In the end I decided honesty was the best policy, I recently phoned the student loans and let them know what I was doing and told them I'd be in touch with a new overseas address, I'll just keep defferring that until I am in that 40k a year job :-) As for other things, pay up your bills man, cos they will put a black mark against you at your old address and I reckon foriegn banks etc will do their own searches on you and it'll still come up as bad debt. You don't know how the system works so why take a chance? I even contemplated not handing my tax return in too, but soon realised that this was a really stupid thing to do....if the worst comes to the worst and they put a warrant out for you (which these things can easily escalate to) they will get you when you go back home to visit people, maybe not the first time but eventually they will. And you'll be in a jail cell thinking "I wish I hadn't been so stupid, what was I thinking" You will be more out of pocket then than you are paying it off now

Leave with a clear mind and know worries man, it's better for your mental health

Atrevido says on Feb 13, 2008, 03:57:

Morals aside apart from Peter´s observaion there are no consecuences from skipping out on six grand or so in debt that would affect your ability to enter or leave thr US.

Robert Jorge says on Feb 13, 2008, 04:27:

Atrevido summed it up. The US doesn't have debtor's prisons. It is not illegal to have debt or unpaid debt. The consequences for running out on debt here will only haunt you later in life; when you travel back to the US and need to open a bank account, rent an apartment, buy a car, etc. Save yourself that burden and pay off your debt first.

--"I believe in making the world safe for our children. But not for our children's children, because I don't think that children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

dwr says on Feb 13, 2008, 04:34:

If the debt is credit card debt, if will disappear after 7-10 years depending on the state of residence. You will be able to get credit again after that if you open a checking account and maintain it with a decent balance. The banks will not make much more effort than phone calls and letters to collect. No jail time. No hold up at U.S. customs. Make sure you file with Uncle Sam. He will find you eventually. As an ex pat, you don't pay U.S. taxes up to about 82,000 dollars in income but you must file. Pay the debt if you can. If you can't, take it on the run dude!

bhill says on Feb 13, 2008, 07:07:

You must pay US federal taxes no matter what country you live in unless the US has a tax treaty with that country. And I don't believe the US has a tax treaty with Colombia. Your creditors will get 1st dibbs on any refund that might have been due to you until any debts are settled.

$6000 is not worth complicating the rest of your life. Just pay them.

pedro says on Feb 13, 2008, 07:30:

After dealing with Colombian banks, you'll wish you could go back to US banks again. If you screw them over now, that won't be an option.

Let's imagine you skip out on this debt. You are ruining your chances of building wealth by buying real estate funded by a US bank loan.

que nota!

ColombianoGringo says on Feb 13, 2008, 08:38:

Rubito, What would be the danger in the creditors tracking you down in Colombia?

I worked as a telephone collector for a department store credit dept. while in college and there is very little they can really do to recover their money. They can certainly put a negative mark on your credit and could even sue you and get a judgment, but collecting on a judgment is a whole different story.

It would still be a stupid move to leave your bills unpaid. Don't be a deadbeat.

morphus says on Feb 13, 2008, 08:53:

Buy this book Debt Cures for $30> Call 800-495-2303. It tells you how to eliminate all debt and get the government to give you $150,000 to travel :)

durito says on Feb 13, 2008, 09:02:

I'd say it's a very bad idea.

I worked in lending and spent years reading credit reports --- while everything is in fact fixable assuming you have future needs for credit in the US, it will be far easier for you to pay it off now.

They won't track you down here. They rarely find people in the states -- depending on the type of debt it is there isn't much they can do but ruin your credit. For 5-6k they won't bother getting a legal judgment. You'll be able to travel there just fine without any issue, but I still think it's a horrible idea. 5k is a pretty small amount, why not just keep paying it from Medellin.

I wonder though, how you are planning to move to Medellin when you can't pay off as small a debt of 5k? I'd pay it off first, save a lot more, and then come. Unless you have a high paying job lined up (and in that case, why not just keep paying your debt from down here -- i can pay my credit cards if I use them online).

Even living here, you will want to have access to US banks and credit.

Mr. Hollywood says on Feb 13, 2008, 09:08:

You'd have to be an idiot to fry your credit rating over such small amounts. Of course, it's likely ALREADY fried given the way you're talking. If you're going to skip on debt, at least the smart thing to do would be to declare bankruptcy BEFORE leaving the country so the clock is ticking on that while you're away. But it's pretty hard to live in Colombia as an expat without access to US banking and credit cards.

Also, you might want to check the terms on those student loans. I recall that many of them are not eliminated by bankruptcy.

gringoloid says on Feb 13, 2008, 09:12:

Let's say you come back to the U.S. and look for a job. Most big companies are going to do a background check and this may cause you to lose a good job offer in the future.

In my company, each and every year I had to sign a release so a private detective could do a background check on me that included a credit check.

lots of good advice above, why ruin your life over such a small sum.

if you owe someone $50 million dollars you are considered brilliant, rich, and a genius....but if you owe someone ten dollars you're a schmuck.

durito says on Feb 13, 2008, 09:23:

What if you owe $6.4 Billion?



Harry Macklowe’s $6.4 Billion Bill
By CHARLES V. BAGLI and TERRY PRISTIN

IN August 2003, Harry B. Macklowe raced from lender to lender to round up a record-breaking $1.4 billion to buy the General Motors Building, the 50-story commercial skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan that is one of New York’s trophy properties.

Then 66, he gambled mightily to outmaneuver rival bidders and to vault back into the top ranks of New York developers. He went so far as to put down a nonrefundable $50 million deposit and sell many of his residential buildings to raise cash. Some bankers and real estate executives scoffed at the deal, privately suggesting that Mr. Macklowe had overpaid and would drown in an undertow of debt.

Not for the first time, Mr. Macklowe, an acknowledged master of winner-take-all real estate poker, proved his skeptics wrong. He expanded and enhanced the valuable retail space of the G.M. Building — on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street — by creating a glass cube for an Apple store that has become a popular tourist destination. As the market soared, Macklowe Properties refinanced the tower twice, most recently in a deal that values it at about $2.7 billion.

But these days Mr. Macklowe is scrambling for financing yet again. He has a $6.4 billion debt payment coming due next month in connection with his purchase of seven other Midtown Manhattan office buildings a year ago. When he bought those buildings from Equity Office Properties, he more than doubled the size of his real estate portfolio and used only $50 million of his own money to do so; he borrowed $7 billion to finance the rest of the purchase.

As often happens in real estate, a once-frothy national cycle is losing steam and the market has turned against many buyers. Mr. Macklowe, with his empire of 15 prime office towers and two development sites in one of the world’s best business districts, is awash in expensive, short-term debt at the very moment that financial backing for megadeals has all but shut down. One of his loans is backed by a $1 billion personal guarantee, and he is already in default on $510 million in development loans for a Park Avenue project.

Mr. Macklowe’s predicament marks the denouement of an unprecedented four-year period in which developers threw gobs of money at real estate as prices for office towers, especially in Manhattan, doubled and tripled almost as fast as sales could be recorded. Investment banks avidly underwrote the binge, often basing loans not on existing rents but on projections of rental income well into the future.

All of this worked swimmingly so long as the economy hummed along and banks could pool the loans and sell them to investors. Now, the economy is showing signs of stress, and Wall Street’s repackaging machine is sputtering.

“In hindsight, everybody should have been more cautious,� said Robert Bach, the chief economist at Grubb & Ellis, the national real estate brokerage firm. “We all knew this wasn’t going to last, but we hoped it would end with a whimper, not a bang.�

Analysts, bankers and developers are not predicting the imminent collapse of the commercial real estate market, a reprise of the early 1990s, when property values dropped by half, vacancies soared and banks were crushed under the weight of soured real estate loans. But developers who jumped in at the top of this market are likely to feel some pain because purchases were built on the assumption that rents would keep escalating and that the value of buildings would keep appreciating.

With building owners no longer able to refinance their properties and pull out cash, Mr. Macklowe and his son, William S. Macklowe, have only a month to repay $7 billion, work out a new deal with their bankers or risk the breakup of their empire. There is widespread speculation in the real estate industry that the Macklowes may be forced to unload some of their properties at a discount to creditors — including a sizable stake in the G.M. Building. At worst, they could be forced to shed much of their portfolio.

“This is very high-stakes poker,� said Scott A. Singer, the executive vice president of the Singer & Bassuk Organization, a real estate finance and brokerage company in New York. “To owe more than $5 billion in this environment is tremendously risky. There are a very, very limited number of lenders who can make multibillion-dollar loans now.�

For his part, Mr. Macklowe — a fierce competitor who still races his custom 112-foot yacht in regattas off the coast of Sardinia — coolly plays down the crisis. He went sailing in the Caribbean three days before Christmas while his son stayed home negotiating with the family’s bankers.

“Our lenders have supported us in the past to an extraordinary degree,� Mr. Macklowe said in an interview in his stark white offices on the 21st floor of the G.M. Building, the evening before he flew south. “We’re pretty confident that, going forward, we’ll be able to achieve accommodations and extensions from our group of lenders.�

THE Macklowes aren’t the only real estate barons in a tight spot. The Kushner Companies, also family owned, plunged into the Manhattan real estate market in 2006, paying $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue, at 53rd Street. The cash flow from 666 Fifth represents only about two-thirds of the amount needed to service the debt on the building — a shortfall of about $5 million a month — according to Real Capital Analytics, a research company in New York.

In Los Angeles, the developer Robert F. Maguire III may be forced to sell his publicly traded company, Maguire Properties, after buying a portfolio of buildings from the Blackstone Group just before the subprime credit crisis sent many of his tenants into bankruptcy. An Australian company, the Centro Properties Group, is putting itself up for sale after failing to refinance billions of dollars of short-term debt stemming in part from its acquisition of an American shopping center company.

To be sure, some bright spots remain. Though vacancy rates are up nationally, the Manhattan market remains healthy, with the vacancy rate in Midtown, the most desirable business district, just 5.5 percent. Because relatively little new space is coming on line in Manhattan in the next few years, the New York market appears to be relatively solid.

But fewer deals are being made and rent increases have slowed, if not stopped. If financial institutions continue cutting payrolls, much vacant space could come back on the market and drag down rents, even in Manhattan.

Despite the problems hanging over Mr. Macklowe’s holdings, some analysts say that it would be a mistake to count him out. This is the third time Mr. Macklowe has stumbled since he started in the real estate business about 48 years ago, and each time he has come roaring back. He has a knack for enhancing the look and cash flow of his buildings, and he is regarded as a shrewd, brass-knuckled negotiator in a rough-and-tumble industry.

A senior member at a major real estate investment firm, who described Mr. Macklowe as a friend and asked not to be identified so as not to jeopardize their relationship, said the developer has “assets with enough value to pay off his bridge loans.� But, this person asked, can Mr. Macklowe “do it with everybody smelling blood in the water and looking to buy a bargain?�

Some of the wiliest players in the real estate business have already been circling Mr. Macklowe.

This past fall, Vornado Realty Trust, of which Steven Roth is chairman, bought a stake in loans collateralized by four of Mr. Macklowe’s buildings on an apparent bet it might snare some great real estate on the cheap, bankers and real estate executives said.

For the last month, Stephen M. Ross, the chairman of the real estate company Related, has been talking to Mr. Macklowe about a deal for Macklowe Properties’ coveted Drake Hotel site, at Park Avenue and 56th Street, an executive involved in the talks said. Real estate executives say another rival developer, Sheldon H. Solow, may buy some of Mr. Macklowe’s debt in a bid to gain control of the G.M. Building, although a spokesman for Mr. Solow said Mr. Solow was not trying to acquire any of the debt.

THE Macklowes readily acknowledge that they are looking for equity partners. Mr. Macklowe’s son, William, emphasizes the quality of the buildings in his family’s Manhattan portfolio, which includes 2 Grand Central Tower, Park Avenue Tower and Worldwide Plaza. He points out that the buildings are also largely full.

“It’s not a real estate crisis but a capital markets crisis,� the younger Mr. Macklowe said. “Our legacy and acquired portfolios are renting at market rates or better. In August, when the world took a 180-degree turn, we and others got caught up in it.�

As it now stands, the Macklowes say they owe Deutsche Bank a $5.2 billion payment in February, in connection with the Equity Office transaction. They owe the Fortress Investment Group, a leading private equity and hedge fund firm, $1.2 billion for a bridge loan backed by a limited partnership interest in the G.M. Building, stakes in 11 other Macklowe buildings and a personal guarantee from the Macklowes for $1 billion.

The Macklowes are in default on a $510 million loan connected with a project planned for the Drake site. Although the Macklowes have a nonbinding agreement with an anchor tenant, a Nordstrom department store, they have not acquired all the land for the project. A spokesman for Nordstrom said the company was also talking to other developers.

At the same time, the family is trying to obtain a new construction loan for a 30-story office building being built at 510 Madison Avenue, at 53rd Street.

Even during this tense period, Mr. Macklowe often interrupts an interview with jokes. And those who know him say that he can be both endearing and notoriously tough. He has tangled with lenders, regulators, city officials, tenants and even his former East Hampton neighbor, Martha Stewart.

“Dealing with Harry can be a charming experience, and it can be like a trip to the dentist without anesthesia,� said Peter Hauspurg, chairman of the real estate investment services firm Eastern Consolidated. “At the end of the day, Harry’s operative phrase is: It’s just business.�

DESPITE Mr. Macklowe’s hard-edged business reputation, friends say he also devotes considerable time to his grandchildren, his collection of modern art, golf at the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton and, of course, sailing.

The son of a Westchester County garment executive, Mr. Macklowe was a college dropout when he started as a low-level real estate broker in 1960. Three years later, he and his supervisor formed their own company, Wolf & Macklowe. By the 1980s, he was building a succession of towers, including the angular black-glass Metropolitan Tower, on 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues; 2 Grand Central Tower; and the residential building RiverTower, on the East Side, where he and his wife, Linda, have a duplex.

Mr. Macklowe would like to be known for his building designs, or his art collection. But what many New Yorkers recall is that in 1985, Mr. Macklowe’s company was involved in the illegal, nocturnal demolition of two single-room-occupancy hotels near Times Square, only hours before a law went into effect protecting the buildings. He was not indicted in the incident, but one of his executives pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment. Five years later, he opened the Hotel Macklowe on the site.

As his purchase of the G.M. Building demonstrated, Mr. Macklowe often gets the timing right. On the day the stock market crashed in October 1987, he sold a package of 15 buildings to Joseph Neumann for $350 million, or $120 million more than Mr. Macklowe and his partners paid for them 10 months earlier. Mr. Neumann’s empire subsequently collapsed.

Like many other developers in the early 1990s, Mr. Macklowe took a beating during a severe real estate recession, ultimately returning both the Riverbank West tower on 42nd Street and the Hotel Macklowe, now known as the Millennium Broadway Hotel, to the lenders.

Rather than disappear, Mr. Macklowe did a series of smaller projects in the mid- to late 1990s, building less-glamorous apartment houses or renovating office buildings on Madison Avenue. In 2003, he bought the G.M. Building, a move that left many of his peers describing him as a real estate genius. The building was built for General Motors in 1968 and now houses tenants like hedge funds, the investor Carl C. Icahn and the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Mr. Macklowe suggests that the building is worth $3.5 billion or even $4 billion, though it may be hard to find a lender or investor who agrees.

By the fall of 2006, Mr. Macklowe was sitting pretty, primarily because the value of the G.M. Building had jumped so handsomely. He was putting together a premier development centered on what was once the site of the Drake Hotel, which he bought in 2006 for $418.3 million. He and his son were also building a hotel and apartment house at Madison and 53rd Street. After the residential market appeared to slow, they nimbly converted it into an office building for hedge funds, complete with a swimming pool and a luxurious health club.

Earlier this year, Mr. Macklowe decided to try his luck again. After the Blackstone Group, a private equity powerhouse, beat back Vornado to take over Equity Office with a $39 billion bid, Blackstone quickly decided to sell most of Equity Office’s Midtown Manhattan buildings without taking possession of all of them. During 10 days of whirlwind deal-making, Mr. Macklowe secured financing and stepped in to buy seven of the buildings for $7 billion.

The timing looked propitious. Credit was so readily available that Mr. Macklowe needed to put down only $50 million. He borrowed the rest in short-term loans from Deutsche Bank and Fortress. But that left him in the dicey position of having to find new sources of permanent financing or equity to pay off the short-term debt.

“He went from utter comfort to being on the precipice again,� said one real estate executive who has worked with Mr. Macklowe and asked not to be identified to retain a relationship with the developer.

The annual rent for the seven Midtown buildings was generally $55 to $59 a square foot, according to William Macklowe, but Deutsche Bank and Fortress underwrote the deal on the assumption that rents would soon rise to $100 a square foot.

After all, the commercial real estate market was higher than ever. The vacancy rate had fallen to record lows, while high construction costs made new buildings prohibitive. Landlords at prime office buildings were getting more than $100 a square foot annually, while the average rents for first-class Midtown buildings rose to $73.31 by the first quarter of 2007 from $55.21 in the first quarter of 2005, according to Reis Inc., a New York office research company.

At the same time, average prices for large office buildings in Midtown more than doubled, to $745 a square foot from $357, according to Real Capital Analytics. Investment banks and foreign companies began pouring capital into real estate. Lenders, in turn, took more risks, often providing financing for 90 to even 100 percent of a building’s price. Investors became ever more willing to accept a lower initial rate of return, known as the capitalization rate.

As with the residential market, the money flowed easily because lenders did not keep these risky loans on their balance sheets — as the commercial banks and savings-and-loan associations did to their peril in the early 1990s. Instead, Wall Street repackaged hundreds of billions of dollars of loans as commercial-mortgage-backed securities and sold them to investors.

“Loans with more aggressive terms that weren’t available in ’03 and ’04 became the norm in ’06, when suddenly lenders became very accommodating,� said Mike Kirby, a principal of Green Street Advisors, a research company in Newport Beach, Calif., that specializes in real estate investment trusts. “The attitude was, ‘Gee, we’re not going to own this stuff; we get terrific fees for underwriting these loans, and we can blow it out in a C.M.B.S. deal in three months.’�

EARLIER this year, however, the real estate winds shifted. In April, just two months after Mr. Macklowe bought the Equity Office properties, Moody’s Investors Services, the bond rating agency, said it planned to readjust how it rated commercial-mortgage-backed bonds to better reflect their risk. The agency complained that lenders were making overly optimistic projections about rent growth.

By last summer, as the subprime mortgage crisis hit residential lending and credit markets tightened, opportunities evaporated for developers like Mr. Macklowe to refinance expensive short-term debt.

Perhaps slow to realize the severity of the credit problem, Mr. Macklowe paid nearly $60 million in June for virtually the entire seventh floor of the Plaza Hotel, the Manhattan landmark that has been converted into condominiums. He hired the architect Charles Gwathmey to design a 13,000-square-foot apartment, which offers a view across Fifth Avenue to the G.M. Building.

But in September, the Macklowes hired the investment banking guru Joseph R. Perella to help them find new equity partners. They flew to the Middle East to visit what cash-starved developers call “the Big Four� — Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai — in an unsuccessful hunt for fresh capital.

“We knew we could get higher value� for the Equity Office buildings, “but it wasn’t going to come in years two, three or four,� William Macklowe says. “We had a plan for a permanent capital solution. The events of the late summer slowed that down.�

The Macklowes say they also spent more than $150 million paying off short-term lenders at the Drake Hotel site and received an extension on their senior debt, which has since expired. But the Macklowes still have to contend with a $510 million note backed by the site.

“There are people out there who are very eager to acquire it if Macklowe decides not to build, or something untoward happens,� Harry Macklowe said. “We’re talking to several of our peers who’ve asked to join us in that development. We’re evaluating.�

There is increasing pressure, meanwhile, to persuade Deutsche Bank and Fortress to extend their deadline beyond Feb. 8 for at least $6.4 billion in debt, allowing the Macklowes more time to find new equity partners.

Bankers and real estate executives are divided over whether the Macklowes will be forced to sell some properties — maybe even some of the most valuable assets. Some also argue that layoffs in the financial industry this year will almost certainly depress the market and the value of commercial property.

Others, like Scott Latham, a broker at Cushman & Wakefield, contend that the vacancy rate is so low that it would take tens of thousands of layoffs to turn Midtown into a tenants’ market. Rents will not go up as fast as they have in the past 12 months, he said, but almost no one is predicting that rents will fall.

Mr. Macklowe “may shed some assets, just because it allows him to control whatever he holds onto,� Mr. Latham said. But there are still enough foreign investors interested in the Manhattan market, he said, “that Mr. Macklowe may not have to sell his core properties.�

A friend of Mr. Macklowe, who asked not to be identified to preserve a business relationship with him, put it another way. “Somehow he always manages to pull it off,� the friend said. “But he won’t do anything until the bitter end. He will play it out all the way.�

vicshere says on Feb 13, 2008, 09:27:

now only if i could so that ....but i have to start with 50 bucks ....not 50 million

listo

RealEstateCOL says on Feb 13, 2008, 10:12:

Say you skip your debt, move to Medellin, and eventually (I'd rather say, forcefully) you need to open a bank account or even better, you decide to buy property or whatever.

As many people here have experienced, renting an apartment in Colombia, opening a bank account or buying real estate means tons of red tape, you need to show lots of credit history, since you don't have any from Colombia you need to provide documents issued in the US, and what will happen when you try to get those documents from US banks or lenders?

vicshere says on Feb 13, 2008, 10:15:

I kind of disagree in Colombia one could manager very well without a bank account....and as long as you pay cash for everything to hell with credit history.

listo

Mr. Hollywood says on Feb 13, 2008, 10:24:

Vic, how is he going to earn his cash? Where is he going to keep his cash?

If the guy wants to move to Medellin and live like a lower-class local for the next several decades, then, yes, he can do it that way. But that's a pretty tough way to go. And certainly doesn't seem like the most prudent choice.

Mr. Hollywood says on Feb 13, 2008, 10:26:

With regard to the article about Macklowe and the debt crisis surrounding lots of prime NYC real estate I predict that the sovereign wealth funds and private equity from places like the Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar, and other cash-rich places are just circling, waiting for it to get really bad. Then they'll sweep in an pick that stuff up at a steep discount. I'm sure the investment banks are already shopping it to them.

morphus says on Feb 13, 2008, 10:47:

You can hide bad credit by getting a EIN number from the IRS. Just use the EIN number instead of your social security number.

morphus says on Feb 13, 2008, 11:13:

Thats cool!

MaFe says on Feb 13, 2008, 11:21:

I don't think it's right for you to run out on debt....if you are doing this now, what are you going to do the next time you run into debt? I am hoping you are young, and if you are please don't ruin your credit; make the right choice.

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "-Aristotle

lpdiver says on Feb 13, 2008, 13:08:

RJ...

Oh but we certainly do have debtors prison in the good old USofA. Skip your child support payments!

t

"cook some rice!"

Robert Jorge says on Feb 13, 2008, 13:36:

LP, skipping on child support is a criminal offense. Not paying a Sears card is not criminal.

--"I believe in making the world safe for our children. But not for our children's children, because I don't think that children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

slguy says on Feb 13, 2008, 13:44:

a guy that runs out on child support OUGHTA be in jail.

Before you throw me out, make sure I pay my bar tab

Robert Jorge says on Feb 13, 2008, 14:29:

And many are, or there are warrants issued for their arrest. They are also publicly humiliated in newspapers as "dead beat dads."

--"I believe in making the world safe for our children. But not for our children's children, because I don't think that children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

ColombianoGringo says on Feb 13, 2008, 15:35:

Colombia needs some child support enforcement. It amazes me that assholes refuse to pay their child support when it is $50.000 COP a month for a couple of kids. In the meantime, I am paying $1,500 USD a month and do so gladly since it is for my kids.

When my wife was in law school, she had to work at a legal aid office for the poor. She mostly had cases where mothers were trying to enforce child support. In the Huila department, many of these guys were oil workers making $2.000.000 a month and they were in court bitching to reduce their $100.000 child support which they never paid anyway. They are absolute scumbags, but they get away with it because of the Colombian injustice system.

MaFe says on Feb 13, 2008, 15:52:

I think everyone has to be a man and pay their debt...i find it dispicable when people choose to ignore thei child support payments; their responsibilities...
I feel if you ignore one debt, you will eventually branch out and ignore the next...
very sad...

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "-Aristotle

Atrevido says on Feb 13, 2008, 16:16:

In Colombia "child support" is the girl´s family. She gets knocked up at fifteen or sixteen by some "vagabundo" who can´t even buy himself a Poker on Friday night (or a condom) and that´s the way it goes. What big recourse does she have? Not letting him put his name on the baby.

MaFe says on Feb 13, 2008, 16:28:

Atrevido is that true? Not too much to be proud of...

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "-Aristotle

Frank Rizzo says on Feb 13, 2008, 16:39:

Colombiangringo....they have very tough collection on child support in colombia, from what i understand. One of our workers had to go from Cali to Pasto to court on not paying child support, just last month.

I sent an attorney with him as he's a very good worker. The attorney says that he could have easily ended up in jail for 2 years or more if he wasn't there. He was 4 years behind on child support.

If the colombian attorney is here, possibly he can tell us more on this....

msaucey says on Feb 13, 2008, 16:52:

Skyler, as everyone else has already mentioned... Pay the debt, yes, it's only 5-6K, but, again it's only 5-6K so pay it off.... Actually, by paying it off and leaving the country you will drastically improve your credit score while abroad, vs. the opposite which is ruin it...

Yes, after 7-10 years the debt will fall off, but, that's a lot of years, most people that make a plan is for the next 5 years... So, what happens if your plan changes and you end up back in the states, you've majorly ruined your credit... And as tight as all the financially scrutiny is, it's just going to get worse... and you'd still have to contact the credit bureaus when you return and ask them to remove it, I don't think they have a magic button that automatically removes negative things from your credit at the 7 year marker..

So, just pay it and then move on....

Also, it depends on the type of debt that you're talking about... if it's 5-6K and it's tied to a car loan, kiss your car good-bye... that's when they'll take you to court...

PAY THE DEBT...

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

gringoloid says on Feb 13, 2008, 17:54:

somebody should check into this, but i think if you go bankrupt, that after 10 years they can't use your filing against you. but, the bankruptcy filing still stays on your record forever.

if he does nothing and they get a judgement against him, and that can stay there for 20 years.

this was not my area of expertise when i was a Certified Financial Planner 30 years ago, but i think there may be some truth to this. it's better to check the laws.

they also changed the bankruptcy laws last year and it is much harder to go bankrupt.

this is too small amount of a debt to go bankrupt.

dude, there are companies that service people who can't pay and they call all of your creditors and get the payments drastically reduced. do a search on debt counselling and see what comes up.

lampltr says on Feb 13, 2008, 17:55:

Morphus, did not know one had that option hmmm jaja.
Skyler, best to pay them off since so little as everyone says. Nowadays you do not want to risk being plugged at the airport by Dept. Of Homeland Security's data base. Believe for a minimum of $2500 owed ie Child Support, IRS, State Debt etc. one's passport can be confiscated denying exit. Do your homework before jumping as it may be too late once you do.
Another thing, technically everyone is correct, but nowadays a creditor knows the statue of limitations, BUT they will sell the account to another entity keeping your debt well and alive to pass on to your children's children.

lpdiver says on Feb 14, 2008, 03:31:

Colombia does have child support enforcement laws. I guess no one here has been in the DAS line for the annual renewal of work permits. I personally witnessed three men hauled off to the gulag for non payment in 2003.

I didn't say they didn't need or deserve to be in prison. You can refer to it as a criminal offense if you like; but, don't pay your debt for child support and you go to prison. Pay it and you are out immediately. I call that a debtors prison, you owe you are in jail, pay and you are out!

t

"cook some rice!"

jorgegdiaz says on Feb 14, 2008, 05:28:

The US doesn`t consider debt as a criminal offense. It`s only a civil matter. Therefore NOBODY is coming after you. The only thing they can do is to repo the purchased items... but are they going to ask you to "puke out" the knowledge you got from your student loans?

If you are not going to LIVE (emphasys in LIVE) in the god ol` US&A for 7 years, you`ll be fine. That`s the current time that events in your credit history stay for public view (EXPERIAN, TRANS whatever, blah, blah .... On the other hand, agencies such as DHS or the FBI can look at your WHOLE credit history as part of a security clearance, i.e. you are getting a job as a Federal employee with TSA, they will see you have unpaid debts.

2 subtopic: Colombia does consider a criminal offense not paying child support. The ICBF (equivalent to CPS) can go after your salary and further can send you to jail for not paying child support. I learned that the other day waiting in line at Banco Agrario. A woman was telling another lady that she was making a deposit for child support for his husband`s kids with a former wife. She added she had to go and make the deposit b/c the guy was at work and if he didn`t pay his ex-wife would call the cops on him, and he would go to jail...
She also mentioned that while paying child support the guy couldn`t get out of the country... My guess is that he probably had a child support lawsuit pending rendering him in DAS database at airports.

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

usher127 says on Feb 14, 2008, 07:25:

So, all the arguments seem to be based on... what happens when you return to the US permanently scenario

So, if i'm sure i'm not going to return, would it be a good idea to run up a $20,000 US bill on my credit card? Morals aside (after all we're talking about banks), what's the worst that could happen?

gringoloid says on Feb 14, 2008, 07:32:

$20,000?...man, that is a small amount of money.

i knew a woman in NY that defaulted on about $600,000 in credit card debt.

gringoloid says on Feb 14, 2008, 07:35:

i read about another guy in NY, that spent his later years accumulating all the debt that he possibly could, not from a corporation where you could get billions.............but on his own. so from flat broke, he accumulated about $75 million.

morphus says on Feb 14, 2008, 07:47:

Maxing out credit cards and moving abroad:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071015162958AA0UV8n

morphus says on Feb 14, 2008, 07:50:

Offshore accounts:

http://www.offshorelegal.org/asset-protection/panama-offshore-asset-pr...

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/help-and-advice/advice-banks/article.html...

Mr. Hollywood says on Feb 14, 2008, 08:23:

I'm a bit flabbergasted that they haul guys off to jail for non-payment of child support in CO. Not that deadbeat dads aren't scumbags, but I'm just shocked that in a country where so many murders and other huge crimes go unprosecuted, they're devoting law enforcement resources to that. I guess they consider it picking the low hanging fruit, like writing traffic tickets.

ColombianoGringo says on Feb 14, 2008, 08:38:

While child support is supposed to be enforced in Colombia, most of the deadbeat dads get away without getting tossed in jail. True enforcement seems pretty spotty at best. I personally know of several cases where the dads have gotten away with it for years and my wife saw countless cases during her legal aid work. These guys can play the court system for years and hardly ever get punished for not paying.

lpdiver says on Feb 14, 2008, 08:56:

True...the one I saw "seemed" unaware of what was going on. But it is nice to know that they system is set up to help enforce the laws. Of course if someone is aware and can find work that does not require documentation then they won't likely be caught.

t

"cook some rice!"

aztec says on Feb 16, 2008, 05:56:

This seem no different than robbing a bank. You just don't use a gun.

Skyler says on Mar 13, 2008, 09:06:

Sorry I haven't replied to this in such a long time. To be honest I'd forgotten I'd posted it LOL

First,... hmm, I'm a girl actually, though I know it's hard to see gender online. :)

Second yes, I'm young.

Third, it's not child support or car loans, it's credit card debt, and a couple old utility bills from a few years ago when a roommate screwed me over.

The timeline of me moving has changed to do the help of a friend, and now that I have more time to be able to move in, perhaps I shall see if I am able to do settlements or anything. My sister is allowing me to move in with her and her family, to help me save money, and that will save me a good 50% on my monthly bills.

Thanks all, for replying to this even when I the original poster was nowhere to be found.

and as for the student loans, I am currently working on deferring them as I type this. And yes, I shall pay them off. As for banks, I am in good standing with my bank, and intend to see if there's any way I can keep it when I'm there. Visa check cards are amazing things LOL

orestesdd says on Mar 24, 2008, 10:20:

How about the other way? Someone who wants to leave Colombia but has one of those debts she got into to have her son going thru high school. Will she be able to leave Colombia without paying her child's high school loan? Could she make arrangement to pay this debt from the US?

Thanks.