Old creditor trying to repo redeemed vehicle

[NoMoreRed]

1) Filed BK Dec. '08
2) Order to redeem vehicle at fair market value granted and signed by judge on 2/13/09.
3) US Bank sent old creditor (a credit union) payment on 2/27/09 which they received 3/2/09.
4) Began paying US Bank on 3/1/09 for new loan on redeemed vehicle.
5) 4/3/09 BK discharged and life is beautiful.
6) 6/20/09 Receive call from asset recovery outfit which says they are trying to repo the vehicle for the CU.
7) Call the CU and explain that they are in violation of a court order.
8) CU says they will put a hold on the repo pending investigation and claim they didn't receive payment and didn't know of order.
9) Find out through motor vehicle dept that CU hasn't released the lien.
10) Will be calling US Bank and 722 Redemption on Monday along with attorney.

I'll keep everyone posted on what happens. The vehicle is currently garaged and we have moved since the bankruptcy has discharged. I have made 5 monthly payments to the new creditor US Bank under the terms of the new contract. I have an extremely detailed log of this entire situation in case this goes to a legal dispute. If anyone has any pointers or has had a similar experience...please share.

My feeling after speaking with the CU is that they are not being honest and are probably holding the lien until they are forced so that they can try to recover more $$$. This is a direct violation of a court order and I plan to see an attorney to sue if so and will seek any and all restitution possible including attorney fees.

I HATE CREDIT UNIONS!!!! If after reading this post you find some inaccuracies in my assumptions or plans please let me know. Any help is truly appreciated.

[StartingOver08]

I found a case that is not exactly similar to yours - but has the same effect. You might want to review it, because your situation seems much, much worse in that your creditor accepted the money and still will not release the lien. You should get damages from the creditor for this repossession. Here is one case that may help you:

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/462/462.F3d.14.05-2453.html

[justbroke]

This sounds like a pure case of a Stay Violation.

[shabam]

Let them take your car and then sue them for damages.

[eli4625]

Question

Can someone explain to me what it means to redeem the car at fair market value and how that involves a BK?

[shabam]

Can someone explain to me what it means to redeem the car at fair market value and how that involves a BK?

It's called a 722 redemption. US bank is the only company I know of that offers this service.

http://www.722redemption.com/debtor.aspx

[eli4625]

thanks

I went to the site and applied, but unsure how it works? I am guessing the BK discharges the car loanand you get a new loan for the car, but doesn't the original creditor get pissed? Do they just get the "fair market" value in from the new loan?

[NoMoreRed]

Update on the situation:

Credit Union says today that they are suspending the repo request pending investigation. Spoke with 722 Redemption and they confirmed the tracking info and show that the check that was sent to the CU was received and signed for. They also verified that the check was not cashed. They said they are going to issue a stop payment on the original check and send them a new check.

My gut feeling is that the CU has the original check and they know it, but are being difficult since they are the ones who lost. I'll post up with more info when I get it. It's really amazing what banks (and CU's in this case) are being allowed to get away with.

By the way...the vehicle is tucked away because I don't trust what the CU is telling us.

[NoMoreRed]

Update:

Well, don't know what to do.

The CU has supposedly turned everything over to their attorney. Our attorney has tried contacting their attorney several times with no returned call.

Our attorney is now ignoring our calls.

We are stuck paying the redemption loan and 722 redemption says they can do nothing for us.

US Bank says that we now have a signed contract with them therefore we have to honor it. I say to them...get me a copy of the vehicle title...they say they don't have one.

Anyone go through this? The court order was signed and the creditor is in violation. I have no idea what to file (that's why we hired an attorney for our case in the beginning). I have been told that since we retained legal representation that we cannot do anything on our own at this point. We are now backed into a corner with nowhere to turn. This has been and continues to be a big nightmare....

[aces67]

Stop calling your attorney and just show up and demand to be seen.

In the meantime keep the car out of sight.

[music12]

there was a poster here who had a similar problem with their attorney. they filed a motion for sanctions on their own. then their lawyer joined their motion and they did very well. search the forum, hopefully you'll find it.

clerks are supposed to tell you that if you have a lawyer you can't do anything on your own, but if it comes down to it and you come in with paperwork, the clerk cannot refuse to put it in the file. in fact, next time you leave a message for your attorney just tell them you'll file a motion on your own - that would get their attention...

[NoMoreRed]

Update:

Well it turns out that our attorney had not been ignoring us and had been sending emails all this time that we weren't receiving. I finally talked to their office and when they heard I wasn't getting the emails they did some checking and found that they had a problem with their email server. Afterward, every email they had been sending got released by their server and we then received them. Hooray for technology. LOL

It turns out that our attorney had been working on a solution. We ended up with several options. The credit union was going to file to have the order for 722 set aside and was claiming that they were not notified when the order for 722 was filed. The CU's attorney contacted ours and said they feel that the vehicle was worth $8000 instead of the redemption amount of $3875. The vehicle, by the way, is a 2002 Dodge Durango 4x4 that gets horrible mileage, but at the redeemed amount was a bargain. We took it to CarMax for a free appraisal and received one that said it was worth $6000. Our attorney sent that back to the CU's attorney and they agreed that they would accept that as payment in full and release the lien. However, we didn't go that route...I wanted to know other options since I didn't like the fact that the CU was trying to strong arm us for more.

Our attorney had also been working with 722 redemption regarding the loan that we had been paying on with US Bank. The CU had never cashed the check that was sent to them for payment from 722. Had they done so this would indicate that they accept the offer of redemption for $3875. Since the check was still uncashed it gave us the option to have 722 void the loan (since they never actually paid for anything), refund all of our payments that had been made since the loans inception and surrender the vehicle back to the CU. I am told that the CU will then get auction value for the vehicle which is basically less than what the redemption value was.

So this is what we did:

1) Had the loan with US Bank voided and having our payments refunded (722 is taking care of this).
2) Surrendered the vehicle back to the CU.
3) Went car shopping.
4) Qualified for and purchased another vehicle (2007 Pontiac Grand Prix GT with low miles) at a much lower interest rate than the redemption loan.

The process is still in the works so unless something drastic happens then this will be my last update of this thread.

If I had to do it again......I'd have skipped the redemption option and elected to surrender in the first place. I hope this story helps someone make a decision that works for them.

[liz417]

Wow! I think this situation is a blessing in disguise...really. Sounds like the CU is playing games, I'm glad it all worked out and you got a better deal on another vehicle.

[NoMoreRed]

Wow! I think this situation is a blessing in disguise...really. Sounds like the CU is playing games, I'm glad it all worked out and you got a better deal on another vehicle.

Yes they are playing games. My wife was employed by them and once they were notified of the BK last year they started treating her horribly. They tried getting her to quit by sending her to work at other locations that were 60 miles away (one way) and pulled her into several one on one meetings to try to intimidate her. They were riding the fine edge of breaking the law because of the BK, but never mentioned specifics. We could tell based on what was discussed in those meetings that they were driven by the BK because of the information, but they never came out directly with anything. That's all that our attorney was waiting for.

Anyway, my favorite part of this is the fact that the CU that was trying to strong arm us for more money (even though we followed the legal options available with the BK code) will end up with less than they could have had. I really dislike it when these institutions try to bully people around.