property tax question

[monkatom]

Not sure if this is the right spot but here goes. Lawyer advised us to sell a car that would not be exempt in BK and to use thr procedes to pay bills, etc. So I plan on paying my property tax but was unsure if i could pay both installments or only the one that is due next week. I e-mailed him and called him and the response I got was if I am going to foreclose on my home do not pay the property taxes. I am not going to foreclose and planning on keeping my house so does anyone know if it is OK to pay the full balance of my property tax or will the trustee have problems with me paying in advance as the second paymnet is due in April and I plan to file in February or so.

As a side not regarding lawyer we have not retained him yet so the only time we have met was at the free consultation so he is not completely up to speed on my entire case example foreclosure on house.
Thanks

[HHM]

You can certainly pay your "current" property tax bill.

But pre-paying bills can be a bit tricky. How much money are we talking about?

[monkatom]

I have an installment due Monday for 3,200 and another due In February but late as of Apr 10 for another 3,200. I planned on paying all 6,400 now as I will not have the 3,200 to make the second paymnet in April.

[FreshLikeADaisy]

This is only my thought on it, you may want to run it by an attorney, but since you are keeping the house AND taxes are considered priority, non-dischargeable debt, if you pay it all now the trustee can't exactly do anything about it. When you make a payment the trustee doesn't like (large $ amount, or to an insider, what have you) they go after the person you paid, and even then not very often. But if you pay your tax bill for the year (I would cease calling it "prepaid") I don't see that they can complain on either count: it's not dischargeable, you have to pay it anyway, and they wouldn't go after the county for it even if they didn't like that you had done so. If it were me, I'd do it, especially if not doing it now meant defaulting later on: taxes are pretty much exempt from every other sort of recovery procedure in bankruptcy. That, and paying your taxes in full is unlikely to create the appearance of fraud or asset hiding.

Run it by your attorney again if you're not sure, but that's my thought. Good luck!

[monkatom]

thanks for the advice. Attorney called and said yes to pay it all.
Thanks again you guys and gals rock.