Is this normal?

[jcsawyer]

I checked pacer as I usually do now about 2 times a month since we have been confirmed and making our payments, low and behold Santander (My car finance company) filed an amended claim for $8200 down from $14k that they claimed when we filed. They took FOREVER to pick up the car. Matter of fact between the attorney and myself we had to call them weekly to even see if they were coming to get it. In Oct. I took insurance off of it turned the tags in and let it sit at my FILs house since hes never there. Well they called me the day before Christmas to pick up the car (they did so without the keys too LOL Oooooos, I wasn't leaving them in an unlocked vehicle, can you say stupid repo man!) Anywho, they filed an amended claim on Friday stating the amount for what they didn't get and attys fees when they sold the car. Then turned around and withdrew the claim for the amended amt. So any idea what is going on with that? That just makes no since they did it the same day they filed the amended claim. Seems pretty stupid if you ask me, but there again this finance company is a bit backward.

[justbroke]

Well, claims in a Chapter 13 can be tricky. There are some jurisdictions which will not allow a creditor to amend a secured claim into an "unsecured" claim. That is considered a new claim. Since the time to file "new" claims has passed, they can't just submit a new claim. The only thing that they could have done is filed an amended "secured" claim. But, they have the collateral so the claim is not longer secured.

This is one thing that many "smart" creditors do when they know that you are surrendered property involved in a secured claim. They will file a claim that has a secured and unsecured component. They will typically list the unsecured component as $1 or unknown. That way, they can amend the unsecured component once the collateral sells without creating a "new" claim.

It's either that, or they messed up the "amended" claim in another way. I think the issue is as I described.