Trustee interested in some of our assets - still waiting for call from auctioneer...

[girlgator95]

Hi all,
We had our 341 meeting on 10/4/11 (yeah) and were notified a couple of days later that the trustee was interested in having an auctioneer look at a couple of our assets.

1.) a camper that's partially exempted (if he sells it, he'll have to give us nearly $6,000 of what he gets for it --he might get $10K for it if he's lucky)
2.) an inexpensive camera
3.) a rifle and handgun

It's been 2 weeks since the attorney's office called and we still haven't heard from the auctioneer. Last time I talked to the legal clerk, she said "hopefully they'll forget about you."

Seems a little odd to me. Is this unusual? I'm just not sure what to expect at this point. Would love to know if anyone else has gone through this.

Thanks!

[justbroke]

It's not unusual in Florida to have an appraiser come to your property. The reason being that Florida has such stingy exemptions on personal property. If you're lucky, which it appears you are, and didn't claim or receive the benefit of the unlimited homestead exemption, your "wildcard" exemption is increased to $5,000 ($10,000 if married).

Because Florida has such a stingy wildcard and no "furnishings" or other exemption, many Trustees in Florida will find that the valuations listed on the Schedules must be wrong. You won't believe how many people with 3,000 square foot homes file Bankruptcy and claim that they only have $1,000 worth of furnishings, clothing, electronics, books, televisions, appliances, etc.

The Trustee can take his time since you are an asset case... unless you and your attorney try to compel the Trustee to get moving.

[tobee43]

jb explains it perfectly here in florida.

yet, i do believe over the past year, the state of florida is attempting to make it more difficult to file chapter 7's and pushing more people toward 13's. just reading here on the board, that so many trustees are now calling for these audits as well, as just recently on the local news they were telling a story about a local man that went bk and lost his house and now the bank is suing him for the deficiency, which we all know under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act and Debt Cancellation ...and understand the conditions he claiming, should never be happening. and, actually, in the "older" days these types of suits were not common as the costs to the banksters are also quite high and usually not worth the effort as result of those costs.

since the states and federal government are dealing with so many filings, i do believe every effort is being made to discourage more and more from not filing, and when some people do, they push many up against the wall. we can also see this, at least in florida where they lowered the median income for a family of two..i.e. it was 62k now 48k...(not exact about the numbers, but close enough for non-government work ).

i know in a few western states they raised the median income, but that doesn't appear to be the norm at this point. just more horror stories to and more attempts to hurt us small little ants.

[IamOld]

Tobee I think as I posted elsewhere, there may be a day coming where the banksters will lose power...

I heard on the radio yesterday that a group of protesters in NYC went to housing court, and stopped the afternoon's foreclosure auctions simply by singing...sounds like 60's non-violent resistance to me...

And it does seem as if the movement is not only not running out of steam but is slowly - slowly gaining steam...

[tobee43]

oh, i as well and HOPING this movement continues to grow and be heard. after all enough is enough and what can we do about it??? only try to be heard, not that anyone can really do anything about it...or can they. in the 60's i do believe those protests i was attending ...or i hope, by attending it help to end the war?

[IamOld]

oh, i as well and HOPING this movement continues to grow and be heard. after all enough is enough and what can be do about it??? only try to be heard, not that anyone can really do anything about it...or can they. in the 60's i do believe those protests i was attending ...or i hope, by attending it help to end the war?

Those protests were more important than people can today imagine!!!!

[tobee43]

Those protests were more important than people can today imagine!!!!

i hope these protests will be viewed the same way. maybe?

[IamOld]

i hope these protests will be viewed the same way. maybe?

It depends on the media and but I think they will be...

[girlgator95]

Thanks for the info. justbroke. Heard from the auctioneer today. He will be coming by to see the property they are interested in tomorrow. We are prepared for whatever they want to take. Just hope it doesn't drag this out too long.

[Diesel73L]

Sorry to hear that you're going through this. Are federal exemptions not available in Florida? They are here in NJ so we are confident that everything we own will be covered. Just out of curiosity what is the camera they are looking at? I would think that kind of thing would be small potatoes to them? We have a Canon Powershot that I bought for $200 at Best Buy nearly 4 years ago before we went on our honeymoon-would we face the same scrutiny for an item like that here in NJ? With the way digital camera technology advances I can't imagine it being worth much right now.

[keepsmiling]

Sorry to hear that you're going through this. Are federal exemptions not available in Florida? They are here in NJ so we are confident that everything we own will be covered. Just out of curiosity what is the camera they are looking at? I would think that kind of thing would be small potatoes to them? We have a Canon Powershot that I bought for $200 at Best Buy nearly 4 years ago before we went on our honeymoon-would we face the same scrutiny for an item like that here in NJ? With the way digital camera technology advances I can't imagine it being worth much right now.

You won't have to worry about the camera here in NJ.
What FL has that we don't is amazing home equity exemption. So the tt's are looking elsewhere for their money, and there have been a couple of stories about the middle district's rather invasive tactics to get it.

[Diesel73L]

You won't have to worry about the camera here in NJ.
What FL has that we don't is amazing home equity exemption. So the tt's are looking elsewhere for their money, and there have been a couple of stories about the middle district's rather invasive tactics to get it.

LOL...I never thought I'd be so happy that our stuff and our house (no equity) is worth very little...

[pathfinders]

yes FL can be tough, we got to use federal exemption luckley bacause we came from MI and we were able to use MI as the state of residence and MI gave you a choice MI or FL. Fl does not give you a choice

[girlgator95]

Well, I met with auctioneer. He was really just looking to see what type of camera/guns we had to see if they were worth significantly more than we stated. I guess they've been burned in the past. Auction guy said someone listed $25 for cameras that were actually worth $30,000. As for our camper, almost $6,000 of its value exempt so he wasn't sure if they would take it or not. Still waiting to hear what trustee decides about that.

[girlgator95]

UPDATE:

Well, here's an update on our case. The TT decided to take our camper and sell it at auction. They did not ask for the camera or firearms. They were just making sure we didn't undervalue them on our paperwork. They are putting our camper up for Auction on 12/3. Because we have $5,000+ exempted on the camper, they will have to pay us that amount when it sells. We don't think it will sell for too much more than that (maybe $10K max). Just wondering if anyone knows how long this will cause our case to continue. I know if won't be officially closed until all the monies are distributed, etc. This isn't really causing us any problems, other than my husband may potentially need to get another vehicle. He drives an old suburban with lots of miles and knows it needs a lot of work in the near future. Has anyone else had experience with this? Just wondering what our options are if the case takes an extended period of time to close.