Jointly owned vacant land

[Miknan]

I own 1/4 of 40 acres of vacant land with my siblings. It's not very valuable land and I could really care less if I lose my share. Originally i thought the trustee would take my land not realizing he would sell the entire 40 acres and give my siblings there part of the money. My sisters are furious (at me) and don't want to sell. My lawyer said they don't have a choice but will have the option to buy me out or I can pay the difference between it's worth and the part of the exemption I'm entitled to, think $3600 or so. I'm in Mich so I can use Federal exemptions. My question is, can't I use Federal wild card money toward this? If I had sold it to my sisters before and got cash wouldn't that cash been included in the wildcard? I just don't understand this. I'm filing jointly.

[justbroke]

The real problem is... what's the true market value of the land today. The Trustee will probably have an appraisal done. Hopefully, the title is impeccable and has no faults in it. The Trustee may sell it on the open market or give your siblings the opportunity to buy it out. In any case, you are right to look to your deductions. Do not "sell" it to your sisters and create more trouble by having the Trustee dig deeper to make sure it was a "good" sale.

Speak with your attorney again and ask about the Federal Wildcard, which you eluded to. I believe the key will be just how much the land would generate on the market and whether the Trustee would be satisfied with your siblings buying out the Estate's portion.

[Miknan]

It just sucks that 3 other people have to suffer because of my bad decisions and bad luck. They don't want to sell theirs but don't have thousands to buy mine. We've always believed the 40 acres was divided already because we each always got seperate tax bills. Not until i got the deed did we realize it was just one plot. The court should be able to sell my land but shouldn't benefit by hurting 3 others. I would willingly give up my share. This will probably cause irreparable damage between one of my sisters and I. She totally went off on me when I told her. I'd like to see what would happen to her if her spouse suddenly got an autoimmune disease like my wife did and they lost half their income. My entire life is in shambles. I could really give a rats behind about this land that we never use but have paid taxes on the past 15 years.

[tobee43]

we were in a similar situation. our ownship was 1/3. our atty said bascially the same as what yours did and what jb is explaining.
the other owners atty's said this. the trustee would allow the other owners to buy our their shares at some point prior to putting it up the market. (so he sasid) i was told this was to save the trustee all the time and effort etc. to attempt to sell property in such a depressed market. we our 1/3 had a mortgage on it. so the other owners paid off the mortgage which our share was way underwater and the other owners lost money just to keep the property. actually if the trustee did try and sell it, after paying the mortgage and the others there really was so little left, it wasn't worth the effort.

their atty's ( the other owners) had them pay off the mortgage, since they did not want to deal with a bk trustee, and had us quit claim the deed to them after the mortgage was paid off. we listed it on our petition along with proof that we owned the property over 20 years, (so the trustee didn't think we were quitclaiming just to hide assets), along with a copy of the mortgage note and pay off proof from the other owners.

while the trustee did question the situation we had all our docs in order and she reviewed them and had no problem.