Turning over house to trustee - why does filing draft say "property retained" etc??

[KevFinnerty]

Holy crap. I am freaking out right now. My 341 meeting is tomorrow.

The atty sent me the filed bk papers last month/whenever but I never actually looked over that in detail (for the hundredth time - I had like 3 prior drafts to that which I did look at & make corrections/raised questions, why should I look it over YET AGAIN??). I assumed the papers submitted were the same as the last draft that I was shown and which I had asked them questions on. When I was in their office I did not even read it over again, I just signed it.

But tonight, since my 341 meeting is tomorrow, I decided to familiarize myself with all the details again, to be better prepared, and looked over the copy that was filed. After things got filed I just tried to reduce my overloaded stress levels and put it all out of my mind and did not review it. Now I have a big shock and am panicking. Hopefully for nothing but I'm not so sure.

This concerns the point above where it was explained to me that my Intentions for my house would be to "retain" it but to leave the explanation part blank on the form, and not even fill in the part about property being claimed as exempt or not. Recall my hope is to have the trustee take the house & sell it, and give me my homestead exemption. Supposedly the atty was leaving part that blank ON PURPOSE (see above).

So what do I see in the filed papers tonight? They filled it out as "retained", but filled in the parts they had left blank in the previous draft, now as "other/sell property" and - to my horror - listed it as "NOT CLAIMED AS EXEMPT".

I can't $*%&ing believe this. So I get to go to the 341 meeting tomorrow afternoon with being up all night sick with worry about how this is filled out what looks like totally wrong, probably will not get one wink of sleep all night. I *trusted* the atty/paralegal & accepted their explanation as to why they were leaving these areas blank after I asked about how that didn't make sense, I accepted their explanation as to why it should be filled out blank that way, then never looked it over again assuming they would not be changing it to something else - yet they changed it to something else and never explained why or said a word.

But maybe it does not matter. Sigh. From what I am learning reading more tonight supposedly things can be changed at the 341 meeting. I fired off an email to my atty/paralegal tonight asking for an explanation of this. I better get a good one. Although at this point I truly do not understand how this is supposed to be declared for my goal anyway, and they could tell me anything & I would be stuck with their advice, until I see how it works out. Still seems like a huge mess to me, and 50/50 it will be done wrong.

[despritfreya]

KF,

In response to:

"So what do I see in the filed papers tonight? They filled it out as "retained", but filled in the parts they had left blank in the previous draft, now as "other/sell property" and - to my horror - listed it as "NOT CLAIMED AS EXEMPT"."

Reading back through the posts reminded me of all of your concerns. The process itself should not panic you. With very few exceptions, mistakes can be corrected.

I agree that the mistakes you now describe should not be. . . however, as it relates to your homestead the only document you really need to focus on is Schedule C. Did you properly claim your homestead exemption on Schedule C?

Remember, a Statement of Intention (surrender/retain) is only that, a statement of what you intend to do. It is not really relevant for any other purpose and any typo (failure to mark the exempt box for example) is not going to amount to much. Yes, it can be amended if necessary.

I believe that you are hoping the Trustee sells the home, cuts you a nice check for your homestead and then distributes the balance to your creditors. Just remember. . . it is the Trustee who decides if the asset has value to the estate. If he does not think a sale of the property will produce a sufficient dividend to the estate he will abandon it. The choice is his so please do not be disillusioned if the Trustee decides not to sell the asset.

Please stop worrying. All will work out in the end and you need not lose sleep between now and your 341.

Des.

[tobee43]

KevFinnerty...first, i would like to wish you the best of luck at todays 341...as des points out,

Des:Reading back through the posts reminded me of all of your concerns. The process itself should not panic you. With very few exceptions, mistakes can be corrected.

it can and will be fixed...it's such a stressful time...but by early evening today, you'll be just fine and relaxed and it will be done!!! i would call the atty's office again this morning and advise them corrections need to be made on the petition or whatever paper your looking at, and you need to speak to the atty prior to the actual meeting as you would prefer NOT to do this in front of the trustee for the SAKE of the atty NOT you....since it will not reflect well on them either...so it's in your atty's best interest to correct any error made.

best of luck kev...and make certain you let us know how you make out!!

[KevFinnerty]

Thanks people.

Let's see - Yes, the house is listed as a property exemption in schedule C with the value correct as both the fed exemption & estimated value. Whew. Jeez this is giving me a heart attack though (as well as other stuff).

I understand that the trustee may decide he doesn't want to take it/sell it, but at least I want that as an option. Thanks for explaining the intention part better, that it can be changed. I will discuss this with the atty before the hearing this afternoon.

[KevFinnerty]

Wow. I was freaking over nothing. None of it mattered at all. We didn't even change it.

The trustee just asked about the house and it was then discussed. My atty suggested that it would an asset the trustee might want to look at, minus my exemption, his fees etc. What he is going to do I don't know but he seems interested in it, we have to get him some other information that he asked about relating to the house.

I'll post about my 341 experience in another thread since there is a subforum for those. I read a bunch of them last night.

Basically, nothing much happened at all and it was over in 5 minutes. Much less scary or painful than I imagined it was going to be. The atty office's standard answer to my questions of how this or that doesn't matter, don't worry about it, turned out to be true.

[angles]

I am coming late to this thread, but we have one rental house that should clear about 80K when sold that is not protected. Our attorney (who is also a trustee) marked it as non-exempt and not going to retain and included the market value and what is owed on it. I imagine he did it this way because he did not want to look like an idiot to the other trustee by checking the retaining box when it is obviously an asset they will want. I swear during our 341 meeting when the Trustee saw that asset his eyes got big and he started thumbing through a BMW brochure. We filed back in June and nothing has happened so far and we should be discharged in a few weeks.

This reminds me of a book I recently read regarding finances. On the topic of home ownership, the author stated that any property you own should either be mortgaged to the hilt or paid off. He went on to tell a story on how he had equity in his home, lost his job but the money was locked up and he could not access it. He fell behind in the payments and he could not get a loan to carry him further down the road because he had no job. Because he had equity in the home the bank foreclosed on him ASAP to access the money for themselves.

[KevFinnerty]

Interesting, Angles. Thanks for your post.