How many months back do they look at bank statements?

[NewStart2012]

Hello everyone. I just joined and am so glad our friend referred us to this site. I was able to read all the stickies in this section and some other posts...all so helpful Thank you so far!

We are in CA and about to file a ch 7. We will eventually walk away from our home. We had a sale date on it but it got cancelled for some reason. We think it may have to do with our other atty, who was trying to get a modification plan going for us (with BofA); but we never were notified it stopped. We just watched our house on a foreclosure site and saw that it was cancelled. I have three questions:

(1) Is that typical for them to stop a foreclosure auction and not notify us?

(2) When you file a ch 7, how many months back will they require our bank statements? We had gotten some money from work, which we had to put into our corp acct. We then pulled out cash to put into our personal checking account for living expenses. We also kept some cash to pay for things. We have receipts for most cash transactions. From reading other posts, it seems this will not be a problem. Is this accurate?

(3) If it's been over a year since we were first given a notice of intent to foreclose, with a sale date. Will they need to redo the whole process or can they just restart a sale date now? Basically, we're trying to see how long we may possibly stay in our house after the filing of ch 7 and including the foreclosure process.

Thank you in advance for any response(s)!

[AngelinaCat]

They will require six months of bank statements, or pay-stubs, or pay-advices if you do direct deposit. You probably also will be asked for your past two years tax returns, both Federal and state.

I cannot help with the foreclosure questions, as we did not face that situation in our BK.

Welcome to the forum, BTW.

[NewStart2012]

Thank you AngelinaCat for the response and the welcome I'm so glad I found you guys! Thank you for your time in moderating as well.

[btbeme]

All the BK will do is stall the foreclosure, and only for a short time. The best case scenario is that the bank will take a wait-and-see stance and postpone rescheduling a new sale date until after the BK discharge. Or, if they feel like it, they could appeal to the BK court to lift the automatic stay; and if that lift is granted then they will likely go ahead and actually schedule a new sale date to occur immediately after the BK discharge.

I suggest that you or your attorney make sure that the notification of your BK reaches the right folks in the foreclosure office. Generally, in this digital age, such notifications are immediate and trigger an automatic status update, but it really isn't much trouble to verify that BK notice has been served. The office to contact is usually spelled out on your notice of sale. A phone call with the BK filing number and the home parcel number is usually good enough.

Regarding accounts - keep receipts. Be proactive and pull the last 6-12 months of bank statements and see if you can pencil in the explanation for deposits, withdrawals, and transfers. A Trustee could interpret money movement as innocuous, or they could view it as evidence of a game of "Hide the Banana." If you can show and explain transactions that might get questioned, then you and your attorney shouldn't have any concerns when it comes to a Trustee asking questions about them should they feel the need.

[NewStart2012]

btbeme, thank you for your response and advice. I will start and be proactive now and try to document as much as we can. Will also ask our atty to give the notification to the people that handles the sale. I wouldn't known to ask our atty to do this otherwise - thank you!

Do you by chance know what the "short time" for the stall is?

We're really trying to figure out when we should file. Should we take a chance and stay in our home until we get a new foreclosure notice or just file the bk and move forward. Any opinion on this?

[despritfreya]

(1) Is that typical for them to stop a foreclosure auction and not notify us?

Yes. B of A is notorious for not knowing what it is doing. Instead of bumping the date it canceled it.

(2) When you file a ch 7, how many months back will they require our bank statements?

This will depend upon your Trustee. You are not a cookie cutter 7 as you have a corporation. Your Trustee will investigate the financial affairs of you and the corporation and may request bank statements going back a year or more. While I do not like the fact that you took your earnings and deposited them into the corporate account, so long as you have good records you should be fine.

(3) If it's been over a year since we were first given a notice of intent to foreclose, with a sale date. Will they need to redo the whole process or can they just restart a sale date now?

Once the trustee sale was canceled, Recontrust will have to restart the entire process pursuant to State law, which includes the required waiting period from setting to conducting the sale. Filing of the bk will delay this but eventually a new Trustee Sale date will be set. This could take months, and months, and months, and months (you get the picture).

Des.

[tazunemono]

My trustee only asked for last year's taxes and 6 months of bank statements. Depends on your order (and State/district/trustee, etc.) YMMV

[ksgirl38]

I was told 3 months of bank statements, but I guess it all just varies by state and your situation.

[NewStart2012]

Des, thank you so much for weighing in on this. I've read your other posts (esp. the one re: the Florida one where BofA was trying to ask the guy for post financials and the tt was possibly in pocket w/the realtor) - appreciate your straightforwardness and passion

I'm seeing a trend with BofA where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. We recently were given a new packet stating we qualify for a new loan modification program. Our atty advised us to not respond as they would expect some money now to show good faith. He said it's not worth it as our house is worth close to half of what we owe and we haven't paid in over a year. Although, we've gotten scammed twice (once from a modification fraud where the person is now incarcerated and another from a modification atty who is now disbarred). Both were referred to us by friends who were also scammed and eventually lost their houses We also paid thousands in postponement fees (we justified those as paying rent to stay here longer). We were hoping to grow old in our home but bought high But, we've since realized that a "home" is whereever our family is and we've come to accept our situation.

The earnings that we deposited in the corp were made out to our corp name and we thought our only choice was to deposit them and use them. We just received another one for about $1500...what would you advise on doing with this? Should we deposit it and buy necessary business-related items or hold on to it until after discharge? We've never given ourselves a paycheck from the corp and mostly took distribution. We didn't handle the whole "corp" thing correctly. We've typically deposited money from self-employment where the checks were written in the corp name and then spent the money on business expenditures or took cash as distributions, most of which went into our personal acct for household expenditures. Any advice you can give on this would be much appreciated! FYI - this will be the last check we'll receive for the next 1-2 months. Should we wait a little longer to file? We do have a couple of judgments and small claims filed against us from cc co's so we can't wait too much longer. Or can we?

Oh, I didn't realize that it could "take months, and months, and months" - good to know. We were originally stalling till we got notice again so we can continue to live here. The problem is, we keep accumulating money from work and our atty said the trustee will most likely take some of it as we can't excempt it all If we were to pay our mortgages, we'd continue to go into debt. That's how we got here - took money from cc's to pay mortgage Big NO NO!

Thanks again for any advice/opinion!

[NewStart2012]

taz and ks - we're in CA. Thank you!

[despritfreya]

The earnings that we deposited in the corp were made out to our corp name and we thought our only choice was to deposit them and use them. We just received another one for about $1500...what would you advise on doing with this?

This is new info. From your first post it sounded like the money were wages you earned. If the checks are properly made payable to the corporation they belong in the corporate coffers. From there I would assume you take draws and, with the balance, pay corporate expenses. No problems there. As to timing, you need to discuss this with your attny. If you kept decent records there probably is no reason to wait but only one familiar with your specifics can properly advise you.

Des.

[NewStart2012]

Thank you for responding Des! I appreciate it.