Big Mistake has this happened to anyone?

[cp2010]

I am not sure who's fault this is or if it's both. But now I feel like we are up a creek. We filed chapter 7 and somehow it escaped out lawyer that we bought our daughter a car close to a year ago for graduation paid in full in her name.
It never occured to either of us to claim it as a gift to her b/c it's been almost year ago that we gave it to her and certainly not money we were trying to hide. We got our son a car as well during the same situation but his was financed so it was still in our name. Now that our lawyer realized this he is freaking out and has us freaking out that we have two options. Go to the creditors meeting and let them take the car we will basically have to buy it back which I really don't want to do nor do we have the money to do or.....don't go to the meeting and hope its dismissed which will give us time to put the car in our name so we can exempt it.
Any advice?

[whipster1]

You have to disclose it. It is up to the trustee to decide what to do. Is there any room to exempt the amount or at least part of it? If there is room, amend your schedules to show the car and exempt it, otherwise you will probably have to pay the trustee the amount that you were not able to exempt.

[justbroke]

No advice! Even if you dismissed and put the car in your own name, it's still a transfer of property to an insider. Worse yet, you're doing so to hide it from your creditors.

Why not just take the 341 Meeting and the filing as it comes. I'm not trying to be mean, but people get a lot of attachment to "things" that are only material. If you want the discharge in the Bankruptcy, it may "cost" you something... maybe a car... maybe paying part of the value of the car to the Trustee. I can't answer that for you.

What I can say is... that you do have an issue. Whether the Trustee will want the asset (seek to avoid the transfer) and subsequently allow you to "buy" it back from them, is undetermined at this point.

How much is this car worth? You think you can exempt the whole car after the title issues you're going to have anyhow (gifted and titled to son, then transferred back to mom/dad, then retitled)? That just looks bad to me having just typed it. If we're only taking a few thousand dollars, IF the Trustee wants the move to avoid the transfer, then you'll just have to make an offer. If you can't afford to offer the Trustee anything (and remember, they'll let you pay interest-free for even up to 12 months)... then I'd just let the car go.

Think big picture.

[cp2010]

Yes we do have room to exempt the whole thing which is what irks me. The problem is if we had caught on to this earlier we could have bought it from her and put it in our name. I honestly don't want to pay for the thing twice. It's only a $17,000 car but obviously I don't have $17,000.00 to buy it back.

[OhioFiler]

$17,000 car paid in full less than a year ago and now filing bankruptcy? And your attorney forgot about this? Okay.

The trustee will take this vehicle back. Sorry.

[justbroke]

Yes we do have room to exempt the whole thing which is what irks me. The problem is if we had caught on to this earlier we could have bought it from her and put it in our name. I honestly don't want to pay for the thing twice. It's only a $17,000 car but obviously I don't have $17,000.00 to buy it back.

You'll just have to see what the Trustee says. Also, with an asset that juicy... you can't just voluntarily dismiss your Chapter 7 case. I hope your attorney explained that to you!

Chapter 7 cases take on a life of their own once you start them. Only the Trustee or Judge can dismiss the case. You are not "entitled" to a voluntary dismissal, and many people learned this the hard way.

[UpsideDownMI]

What's done is done! You have already filed and can't go back in time. Try to focus on the solution to the problem, not the cause. Worst case scenerio in my opinion, is that your daughter will have to return or purchase a car that was a gift to her.

[MSbklawyer]

Chapter 7 cases take on a life of their own once you start them. Only the Trustee or Judge can dismiss the case. You are not "entitled" to a voluntary dismissal, and many people learned this the hard way.

You can be sneaky though and convert to a 13. Then a year or so down the road, when the heat is off, quit making your 13 payments. And watch what happens.

I, of course, am far too scrupulous and ethical an attorney to even suggest that a person should entertain such a scheme. But I've seen it work.

[justbroke]

You can be sneaky though and convert to a 13. Then a year or so down the road, when the heat is off, quit making your 13 payments. And watch what happens.

Yeah, I was going to mention the conversion thing... but didn't even contemplate having a (Chapter 13) case "dismissed" for non-payment.

I don't know why anyone would do this over a $17K car... do you? I can probably see it for an inheritance or death benefit received, but even with that, the attorney would need to carefully construct the Chapter 13 Plan so as not to have the debtor pay just as much in the hypothetical and "temporary" Chapter 13... during that year or so.

[leena]

"Only" a 17K car?

It sounds to me like you should go with the Chapter 13 conversion if you really want to save the car, but you might want to look at your definition of "only" when it comes to
17K...

[MSbklawyer]

I don't know why anyone would do this over a $17K car... do you? I can probably see it for an inheritance or death benefit received, but even with that, the attorney would need to carefully construct the Chapter 13 Plan so as not to have the debtor pay just as much in the hypothetical and "temporary" Chapter 13... during that year or so.

The more the amount is, the more likely the trustee would wake up and insist that you be converted back to a 7 rather than being dismissed.

I don't know, 17K is a lot of money to most people.

[backtoschool]

The trustee will definitely go after this car.

The only hope of holding onto it will be to make a deal with the trustee to buy it back for less than the 17k it is worth.