chapter 7 asset case, not discharged yet

[lowdoughshow]

we have several assets, mostly real estate and several businesses. the real estate might have some equity, not sure how they will lok at it. at what point will they want to sell my house? Will they try to sell to make $10G's or go for around $100G's???the trustee just requested another 60 day extension. Life is hell right now not knowing what is going to happen. do not want to lose my house. dont know what to do.

What rights do they have to come into the house and check personal assets, if any? they said the realtor that looked at the house for the trustee said we had a lot of expensive furniture etc...

this whole procees really sucks

[despritfreya]

Do you have an attorney? While posting here may give you some insight, clearly your case is a bit complex. We can respond with generalizations but your attorney can respond with specifics.

From your post I can envision that your Trustee has a lot to look at. He needs to investigate whether or not your businesses (I will assume they are either LLCs or Incs) have any value and whether or not you are "hiding" any money or assets in them. This is the reason for the Motion to extend the time in which to file a 727 complaint. This should not frighten you so long as you have "nothing to hide". Extension requests are common in more involved cases and 99% of the time amount to nothing.

As it relates to the sale of assets, this too takes time but has nothing to do with the entry of the Discharge. If your home has value over any allowed exemption, eventually the Trustee will hire a realtor, market and sell the property. Once sold he will cut you a check for the exemption amount. In the alternative he might offer to “sell” it to you but then you would have to find a way to “cash him out”. If he determines that there is no equity over the exemption he will abandon the property. The problem is that unless he files a Notice of Abandonment, the abandonment does not happen until the case is closed. This leaves you hanging out there if the property, for example, should appreciate in value sufficiently to justify its sale. (Probably not in this market but you never know.) If you were overly concerned about the value of the home your attorney should have steered you away from a 7. Assuming you have an attorney, and this issue was discussed, you must have come to the conclusion that the Trustee will look but will find insufficient value.

Is there a dollar amount the Trustee will be looking for in selling assets? This depends upon the Trustee. My experience has been that if the estate will produce less than $1,000.00 the Trustee closes it as a no-asset case. Over the $1k amount, well, that will depend upon how greedy (did I say that?) he/she is.

Can a Trustee come into the home to see what you have? Yes.
Will he? Unless you are living in a high end home or he thinks you have something to hide, probably not.

Just remember that the “system” is a process. My guess is that you have a ton of debt that you are going to get rid of. A little inconvenience is simply the price you pay. In the end, you should accomplish your final goal.

Des.

[lowdoughshow]

thanks Des, very informative. our attorney is a little lame, very laid back and fast talking (oxymoron?) in hindsight i wonder if we did the right thing. we do live in a high end home, probably in excess of $1 million, not too sure about equity as i am not sure how they calculate<there could be $100K to $200K. i dont want to lose the house and move the kids etc... you mention "cash him out" , how would that work? pay over time or cash now, so to speak??? we also have other commercial property and investment property etc.. he is going after pretty hard. not sure how that will shake out. How long will he look to sell these properties before abandoning them? 6 months, 1 year?? longer??

do you know if they can just show up to get into properties or do they tell us or our atorney? it kind of feels like he already owns them and wants to decide to give them back to us or not. it really sucks.

thanks for your insight, i learn more here than in my attorney's office.

[AngelinaCatHub]

thanks Des, very informative. our attorney is a little lame, very laid back and fast talking (oxymoron?) in hindsight i wonder if we did the right thing. Our attorney never even talked to us, nor did she educate us as to what is going on. we do live in a high end home, probably in excess of $1 million, not too sure about equity as i am not sure how they calculate<there could be $100K to $200K. You are doing the right thing if you cannot pay your bills. You must have made good money in the past. i dont want to lose the house and move the kids etc...If you CAN make the payments some how, you won't lose the house. You can also reaffirm if the Court thinks you can afford to pay. you mention "cash him out" , how would that work? pay over time or cash now, so to speak??? This depends on the Trustee. He allowed us to pay equal payment for a year no interest. We only paid 5K as we purchased our own property back. we also have other commercial property and investment property etc.. he is going after pretty hard. Of course he would. He is working for the creditors not for you. not sure how that will shake out. How long will he look to sell these properties before abandoning them? 6 months, 1 year?? longer?? We got a letter of abandonment of an unrunning old car we listed. It was before our discharge. We did nothing with the old car until our close.

do you know if they can just show up to get into properties or do they tell us or our atorney? As Des said, Yes. More likely they will inform you as a courtesy but remember once you filed, you OWN NOTHING. It is now a bk estate and legally he owns it. That is why he is called a Trustee. it kind of feels like he already owns them and wants to decide to give them back to us or not. it really sucks. That's the facts. If you had any other way to work it, your lawyer should have explored it. You cannot voluntarily quit your bk at this time.

thanks for your insight, i learn more here than in my attorney's office. Boy this is very true. Our lawyer was worth nothing to us and cost us money due to no guidance. What could we do wrong, we did out of ignorance. We learned much here and are qualified for pro se if I had to do it again. I will NEVER have to do this again as I've learned the right way to live. Cash only.

'Hub

[despritfreya]

Hub pretty much covers your additional inquiries. If you have any others, feel free to post.

Des.

[mwr]

>not too sure about equity as i am not sure how they calculate<

The amount of equity in your home is a huge issue in the question of what he trustee will do. What did you list in your schedules as the current market value of the home and the amount(s) owed on it, and how much of that equity (value less amount owed) was listed as exempt? How was the listed value determined? Did your bankruptcy attorney not discuss those things with you as well as the expected procedure from the trustee?

[lowdoughshow]

if the trustee goes after our assets and the bank is also forclosing at the same time, who wins the race? in other words, if the bank forcloses before the trustee gets his hands on the real estate , how does that work? also, does anyone know how the ch 13 cramdowns work? my attorney is telling me we will do 13 next. i cant see myself continuing on like this and then moving to 13. will we ever be out of bk? i want to keep the house and any RE i can but i dont know how things will shake out.

[mwr]

You're in the middle of a complex bankruptcy case, and we can't know enough here to give you specific advice. About the possible Chapter 13, in general a 13 can keep you in your house longer than in a 7 if you're in arrears on the mortgage payments. The reason is that in a 7 you have to pay all the arrears to keep the automatic stay in place and prevent a foreclosure, but in a 13 you get to put the arrears amount into the monthly payment "pot" and pay it off over the life of the payment plan. If you can't get a 13 plan confirmed, usually because you can't afford the required payments, or if you can't make the current mortgage payments, you'll still probably get to stay in the house significantly longer in a 13 than in a 7. Your attorney is the one who knows the details and the strategy; it would be good if you could get him/her to explain things to you.

[AngelinaCat]

I suspect that your trustee will 'win the race' if you wish to term it that way. Since you are in an active BK, the bank will have to enter a motion to Lift The Stay so that the foreclosure process can continue.

Your trustee can choose to:

(1) Abandon Interest in ___ Property. If that happens, it is out of the BK estate and reverts back to you. In our case, our actual real estate and home are both homesteaded and owned by a State entity, for which we retain a Life Estate. So it was considered 'Fully Encumbered' and the trustee could do nothing with it, hence the abandonment;

(2) Offer you the chance to purchase your property back from the estate. That happened with us, but we had family heirloom type stuff, too much for Florida's exemptions. The real estate is explained above; or

(3) actually offer your property for sale. I have no direct experience with that. Others have, so hopefully they will chime in. Do a search on the poster, 'Southernbelle'. She had a business that failed, and a loser of an ex that left her with all his debt. She actually had property appraisers come to her home. That also seems to happen to folks living in the Tampa area of Middle Florida District.

Southernbelle eventually was successfully discharged in a Ch7. She considered going into a Ch13 after that so that she could repay the IRS debt that was not dis-chargeable, on a payment plan. I believe that she was able to work out an arrangement. She checks back in now and again.

Good luck to you. I hope this has helped some.