Home Equity vs 5th Wheel

[motomom]

Hello,
I actually slept last night after finding this forum yesterday.
Thank you to all! I have learned so much.

WE are preparing for C13, we are a tiny bit over medium for WA State because I am self employed and my GROSS receipts are considered my income not my net!! Anyway, my question is:

Our home is upside down, we have a 5th wheel that is paid for. Can we use our Home Equity exemption for our trailer???? What if we were to loose our home, we would need a place to live.

Thanks so much.

[justbroke]

I'm not too familiar with WA State. I do know that you can choose Federal or WA State. Under the Federal, you could exempt up to about $10K of the equity in the 5th wheel.

[motomom]

Thank You!!! We have appoinment next week for signing. I do not know which the attorney is going with State or Fed, I honestly did not know we had a choice. I do now and this will be at the top of my list of questions!!
Thanks again.............

[DeadManCrawling]

You should be asking this question:

Would a fifth wheel qualify for homestead protection and under what circumstances?

Here in Florida, there are Supreme Court rulings that allow a homestead to be a tent on a pice of land. Or a fifth wheel would qualify too. All that matters is that the land is owned and you live on it.

These are decided by state law, so you will need to ask the attorney for details of what will and will not work.

[floridian]

i live in a rural county...many florida counties will no longer let you live in a camper on your own land without a certificate of occupancy... which naturally they wont give you..

[Atlas]

Camper in chap 7

Have had my first meeting with the attorney. The only thing I'd really like to keep is my camper if possible. Looks like I have a $6500 exemption here in VA for my camper but a blue book on it would probably look like $8500-$10000. Is there anything I can do to cover the other $3500??...

I mean I can always get one later but..the whole point of this is to get out of debt so I'd just as soon keep what we have if possible.

Any ideas?

[StartingOver08]

Have had my first meeting with the attorney. The only thing I'd really like to keep is my camper if possible. Looks like I have a $6500 exemption here in VA for my camper but a blue book on it would probably look like $8500-$10000. Is there anything I can do to cover the other $3500??...

I mean I can always get one later but..the whole point of this is to get out of debt so I'd just as soon keep what we have if possible.

Any ideas?

Get an independent appraisal of your camper. The blue book values are usually much higher than what you can get as actual liquidated value. Make sure to point out all the dings and other items that would negatively impact the value. The reason you need an independent appraisal is to support your position with the Trustee - of course you want this value as close to filing date as possible.