Title missing on car

[despritfreya]

My brain is fried too. . .I have NO idea what we're supposed to do, I just don't wanna hand over this vehicle to the trustee because my lawyer once again screwed up, if there's something I can do.

Ok, let's look at this. First, the lawyer did not make a mistake, at least as it relates to the lender releasing its lien. That issue was the fault of the lender who apparently did not tell you about it.

Second, now that the case is closed, whether or not you take steps to reopen your case and change the exemption boils down to cost.

1. How much $$ will you "save" if you reopen the case? Remember, your lawyer will most likely charge to do this extra work. There is a filing fee to reopen. I believe it is the same or slightly less than the regular filing fee. Of course, I am assuming you can actually reopen the case for the purpose of doing the amendment. I do not know for sure that you can. (As I am typing I am adding a new “twist”. If the case is closed, your Trustee will have to reopen it to administer the asset. . . so maybe your ability to amend is not an issue after all. . . I just don’t know.)

2. Your original intent was to surrender the vehicle. Now, all of a sudden, it looks like you might be able to keep it but. . . in your mind you were going to let it go. Is it really worth the headache to fight this? Only you can answer that one.

3. If you move your exemptions (assuming you can do this), what is the real benefit? I have not looked back through your posts but I assume you will only get to keep one vehicle. Does that help your family or hurt it?

Start looking at this situation based upon what makes sense for your family, not just the idea that now, maybe, you can keep a vehicle you were going to dump.

Just a thought.

Des.

[doomed]

Des, we've always intended to dump it and still do. It runs crappily and gets 8-9mpg when its supposed to get about 25mpg. It needs serious work. I do NOT want it. We were not supposed to lose our savings but our attorney screwed up, and we did. If we can give the car to the trustee and he pays us the exemption for it, that would nearly make up for losing our savings we weren't supposed to lose. (Our history is, our attorney told us we could use federal exemptions, but he had trouble changing the state in the computer to reflect fed exemptions. Well he shows up at the 341 having not still corrected it -- and the trustee tells him he's wrong, we can't use federal exemptions. So in about 5 minutes we went from a no-asset to an asset case.

Again, don't want the car, but if the trustee owes us part of our exemption for it, I'd like it. And yes, looks like he has to reopen it either way, to add the new asset.

[free2breathe]

Ok, so here is what I found in Nolo's Chapter 7 bankruptcy book:

Newly Acquired or Discovered Property
If you omit property from your bankruptcy papers, or you acquire certain kinds of property soon after you file, the trustee may reopen your case after your discharge (if the trustee learns about the property). The trustee probably won’t take action unless the property is nonexempt and is valuable enough to justify the expense of reopening the case, seizing and selling the property, and distributing the proceeds among your creditors. Even if the property you acquire or discover after discharge is of little value, however, you should still tell the trustee about it, even if you think the assets justify reopening the case. Whether to reopen the case is the trustee’s decision, not yours.

Notifying the Trustee
It’s your legal responsibility to notify the bankruptcy trustee if either of the following is true:
• Within 180 days of filing for bankruptcy, you receive or become entitled to receive property that belongs in your bankruptcy estate.
• You failed to list some of your nonexempt property in your bankruptcy papers.

So, if I'm reading this right and comprehending it correctly, it is your responsibility to notify the trustee that you discovered there was no lien on the vehicle. Then it is his responsibility to decide on reopening the case. So, would it make sense to notify him of what you've discovered and state that because you didn't know there was no lien, you did not take any exemption on that vehicle. I would think that if the trustee knew there was another $4000 exemption available to be claimed, it might affect his decision to reopen or not. This is my logical mind trying to figure this out....which may not say much lol, but it seems viable anyway.

eta: I realize you didn't purposely, nor did your attorney, make an error in the way the property was listed.

[free2breathe]

Des, we've always intended to dump it and still do. It runs crappily and gets 8-9mpg when its supposed to get about 25mpg. It needs serious work. I do NOT want it. We were not supposed to lose our savings but our attorney screwed up, and we did. If we can give the car to the trustee and he pays us the exemption for it, that would nearly make up for losing our savings we weren't supposed to lose. (Our history is, our attorney told us we could use federal exemptions, but he had trouble changing the state in the computer to reflect fed exemptions. Well he shows up at the 341 having not still corrected it -- and the trustee tells him he's wrong, we can't use federal exemptions. So in about 5 minutes we went from a no-asset to an asset case.

Again, don't want the car, but if the trustee owes us part of our exemption for it, I'd like it. And yes, looks like he has to reopen it either way, to add the new asset.

This could change things a bit as well. If it needs serious work, perhaps you should have a written appraisal done so that you have a realistic value to give the trustee when you disclose the information to him?

[doomed]

Thanks again, free2breathe. My attorney is making it sound like we can just give it to the trustee or we can go to court and argue for exemption but would probably lose. I'm not seeing where he's getting that -- looks like either way it goes, its up to the trustee whether or not its reopened, and I don't see why we would lose . . I mean yeah we'd lose the car, fine, but we'd still get our exemption after he sells it.

[doomed]

Bumping it again. My stupid lawyer has ignored my last few emails and his voicemail is full when I call. Today, I dropped him an email again and basically said I guess I'll just have to contact the trustee myself . . He replied right away and said the same crap . . . Even though my husband and I both have a 5k exemption, we can't use it on 2 cars and the whole car goes to the trustee. All my research shows this is incorrect. What the hell do we do?!?!?!!?

Edited to add: Again, we don't want to keep the 2nd car, I just want the trustee to pay me my exemption rather than just giving him the damn car but my lawyer who is up the trustees ass feels differently.