Almost there!!

[southernbelle]

[southernbelle]

OH my goodness. Just a sidenote. When I originally filed my paperwork, I also submitted pictures and a list of the equipment in storage. My atty. kinda joked and said he would like to buy one of the tables in storage and I thought he was kidding. He also said that he would document it with the court and it would be okay....also I thought joking.

I've already paid him and everything. He called just now and expressed a serious interest in these tables. He wants to come by the storage space to look at them. OMG!!!! I am a couple of days away from having him file my bankruptcy and he's hounding me for freakin' tables. Are all lawyers this sleezy or is it just Louisiana?????

What do I do? This doesn't feel right and I don't want trouble. I'm stressed out enough without having to deal with this too. What would the trustee say? OMG!!!! And to make it worse, I need to file before Friday or my next check gets automatically deposited into my account.

What next? Will an astroid fall on my house???????

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

[phoenyx]

A regular Chapter 13 doesn't have to, but a "Chapter 20" Chapter 13 does.

I unfortunately don't have much knowledge to share on the liens.

OH my goodness. Just a sidenote. When I originally filed my paperwork, I also submitted pictures and a list of the equipment in storage. My atty. kinda joked and said he would like to buy one of the tables in storage and I thought he was kidding. He also said that he would document it with the court and it would be okay....also I thought joking.

I've already paid him and everything. He called just now and expressed a serious interest in these tables. He wants to come by the storage space to look at them. OMG!!!! I am a couple of days away from having him file my bankruptcy and he's hounding me for freakin' tables. Are all lawyers this sleezy or is it just Louisiana?????

What do I do? This doesn't feel right and I don't want trouble. I'm stressed out enough without having to deal with this too. What would the trustee say? OMG!!!! And to make it worse, I need to file before Friday or my next check gets automatically deposited into my account.

What next? Will an astroid fall on my house???????

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Well, selling the tables right now would complicate the petition more than I think it would be worth. But, if your attorney wants the tables that badly right now and is going to make the necessary modifications to your petition without charging for it, I guess you could go with it.

If you sell him some tables, you will be converting non-exemptable assets (unless you and your attorney decide you can exempt those assets) into cash, which may or may not be exemptable (I don't know how cash is handled under Louisiana exemptions.) This transaction should be listed on the petition. Whether the cash you receive is exemptable will determine whether you get to keep the cash, or whether the trustee would be able to seize it. If you spend the cash on ordinary and necessary living expenses before filing, and keep a good record of how it was spent, I don't think the trustee could make a fuss about it. Make sure any assets you sell right now are at a fair value. Tables won't be worth much. I'm just saying don't sell anything worth $1,000 for like $10.

In the end, selling the tables might get you a small amount of cash you could use toward ordinary and necessary living expenses before filing, which is good since you may or may not be able to keep the tables after you file.

One thing I want to mention for sure is after you file, I don't think you should sell any of your assets until your case is at least discharged. Any non-exempt assets would become property of the bankruptcy estate, and not yours to sell. But selling them before you actually file would be OK.

[southernbelle]

WHEW!!! Thanks. For a couple of seconds this felt really illegal. I guess the atty. can see the opportunity to buy them for next to nothing and is capitalizing on it. Still sounds a little sleezy to me, but as long as I don't have to pay to store them, fine with me I just didn't want to get into trouble.

[lrprn]

OMG!!!! I am a couple of days away from having him file my bankruptcy and he's hounding me for freakin' tables. Are all lawyers this sleezy or is it just Louisiana?????

Go out right now and have those tables appraised by a reliable antiques dealer to find out what they are really worth. Just say you are getting an estimate for your home insurance. You could be sitting on a goldmine and not know it.

And frankly, I think what your lawyer is doing is self-serving to the extreme. Buying items from your own bankruptcy clients who pay you for representation is like a vulture picking the meat off the bones...yuck! Maybe it's fine to do before filing, but personally I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.

Tell your lawyer you'll sell him the tables AFTER your case closes (and after you get the appraisal....but only you will know about that so you know exactly how much to charge him ) .

[phoenyx]

I had assumed they were general generic business tables. Now that I think about it again, perhaps the attorney does see something special in the tables ... Or maybe he just needs some cheap generic tables.

Either way, I think as long as a fair market value is paid, I think it's OK for the attorney to buy them since not doing so might have them taken, and buying them might create either spendable cash before the filing or exempt cash.

[southernbelle]

The tables aren't antique or even fancy - generic and used in food service type business. There are a possible three he's looking at. The first two are just plain old stainless steel tables that I bought for maybe $100 for both and the other thing is more like a shelving unit that I probably paid $75 from Sam's. It seems like he just moved into a nicer fancier office and needs something to put his printer on. If you asked me the shelving unit would probably work best, but I am too scared that the trustee would look at my case like I am trying to pull something.

This stuff isn't top quality or even expensive, but lrprn is right, at first this did feel like a vulture picking the scraps from a poor helpless client, but when you think about the value of this stuff, I just want to get rid of it "legitimately". I kinda hope the trustee takes it because I don't have any use for it, but that will mean my case stays open longer and I don't really care for that, but what else can I do. That might give me more time to deal with the IRS.

I'm paying $120 per month for storage for this stuff, I'd rather have the money than to pay storage for mostly junk. I just hope my atty. knows what he's doing with this stuff, otherwise I will turn into a whistleblower at my 341. If I go down, we all go down!!!

[shadowb]

Wow. This all seems interesting. Now that I am reading this, I am going back over my I and J which was suggested by another poster. I lost my deductions thanks to our trustee. After looking at the I and J, I noticed a discrepancy in the amount my attorney put down for deductions (i.e. health, disability, 401K, etc.) He had me down for $333.00 per month and my actual deduction total is $489.76 per month. I also tried to ask for money for "educational expenses". I have two children that need tutoring and I have one child who they think is dyslexic, and we are in the process of going through the testing, which my insurance doesn't cover. My attorney said our trustee MIGHT allow $100 a month for that expense. I was floored. I am paying $160 for both for tutors and that doesn't include having money to pay for the testing that my doctor would like us to have done. Our trustee is even questioning our medical expenses. She thinks they are too high. I presented copies of our monthly prescriptions and doctor bills (I see at least three specialists and have blood work a lot). When I mentioned that I caught an error on the I and J regarding that calculation, my attorney got all defensive and said that the computer figured it out, and how the computer would be wrong, and that it was based on the paystubs I presented, etc. I told her that I didn't know what happened, I indeed gave them the paystubs requested and if you indeed add it up, that is the bottom line of what the total is. She then went on this tangent of how my worrying about my benefits and my 401k was crazy and she said I needed to pick my battles and should give up my 401k and said that she felt like we had enough in our disposable income to self pay the benefits now if my employer will allow. I also noticed on my I and J they have my income incorrect. They have me making more than what I actually make. And, my child entering college will get no help. Because he is 18, my attorney says he is "on his own", and that the trustee will not give us educational expense on him. They would even let me increase it for the tutor we have because he is almost finished school. We live in Louisiana. Any thoughts would be great? We are really thinking there is attorney incompetence going on because of the mistakes we are catching. For example, in a letter we get from our trustee, she says send things to our attorney, then my attorney e-mails fussing at us saying the trustee hasn't received anything, to send everything to her. We called him saying we were confused because her letter said send everything to our attorney. Then today (after we already went to court), I get a letter in the mail saying he wants everything and now has realized we possibly sent everything to the trustee and that was not his recommendation. Also my husband filled out three payroll deduction forms...one the day we filed. Our attorney called saying he couldn't find it, so my husband completed and faxed another one over to him. After a month or two went by, no payroll deduction (we were self paying), we then go to court and the trustee says she noticed there was no payroll deduction from him. He told her he filled out two and gave them to the attorney, and then she gave him one, he filled it out and handed it to her. We then again watched his check for another month, still no payroll deduction. Last week (before our court date), we get notification from the trustee that she will take the whole amount from my check (even though I make 1/3 of that), to guarantee the money coming because there was no payroll deduction from him. Meanwhile this last paycheck my deductions don't get paid. When I called my attorney to tell them what happened, he says "the reason that happened was because there was no other check to take payroll deduction". I then told him we filled out three of those forms and even gave the last one to the trustee. So, he turned around sent us yet another form via the e-mail. Today in court his partner was there. We took advantage of being in front of the judge to bring up my whole paycheck mess, i.e. loss of deductions, the trustee mentions the payroll deduction, my husband said he had filled one out, then the judge said we needed to get that straightened up. Outside the courtroom the partner says, "well, I thought there was no check from you because you are self employed". My husband just threw his hands up in frustration and corrected her. Now we are to the point of just continuing the way it is and just get confirmed, pay the benefits ourselves (truly the totals balance out anyway, whether we pay or they do the deduction), and just get through these next five years. Between the trustee and the attorneys, we haven't figured out who is worse, though we are leaning towards the attorneys. A flag should have gone off after I faxed the same thing at least three times.

[southernbelle]