Confused about listing values of some property

Ok, a good deal of my household goods, especially kitchen items, are vintage mid-century things, and worth a somewhat decent amount just because that stuff has come into vogue in the last couple of years. But the typical vendor price would vary greatly by which vendor it was being sold at. Something that would be 3 or 5$ at Salvation Army would sell for 30 or 50$ at the antiques and collectibles dealer. To make it even more confusing, most of them were purchased on ebay for about 1/3 of what a local dealer would have sold the same thing for. I'm not going to come anywhere near the maximum allowance for exempt household goods regardless of which price range I use, so am I stressing over this for nothing?

I also have things that are in such bad condition that I couldn't GIVE them away, yet I still use them because it's all I've got. I don't know if I should even list that stuff, and if so, what value do I put? Some of this gets tricky because they are specific items on the household goods exempt list, like I know you can have one radio. I have two. One is an AM/FM from the 1960's that only gets in FM channels now because it's broken, and the other is a transistor (also from the 60's) that only gets AM, so I keep them both. I don't think I could get a plug nickel for the broken AM/FM one. I've seen far nicer ones for free on craigslist. I could pitch it in the dumpster but then I couldn't listen to any FM stations. This is kind of ridiculous.

I was told by the attorney to estimate what it would cost to replace with something of similar age and shape. I asked because I bought all new furniture and electronics about 4 years ago ( paid cash not charged.....then couldn't make that months mortgage , man I was stupid) The attorney told me to estimate what I would pay for an exact set of what I had. I told him that I bought it all for about 8K, but I would probably only pay about 1k for it now since its all used ( with some well placed crayon marks from the kids ). He told me sounded fair and wrote it down.) Trustee didn't say a word.

Ok, a good deal of my household goods, especially kitchen items, are vintage mid-century things, and worth a somewhat decent amount just because that stuff has come into vogue in the last couple of years. But the typical vendor price would vary greatly by which vendor it was being sold at. Something that would be 3 or 5$ at Salvation Army would sell for 30 or 50$ at the antiques and collectibles dealer. To make it even more confusing, most of them were purchased on ebay for about 1/3 of what a local dealer would have sold the same thing for. I'm not going to come anywhere near the maximum allowance for exempt household goods regardless of which price range I use, so am I stressing over this for nothing?

I also have things that are in such bad condition that I couldn't GIVE them away, yet I still use them because it's all I've got. I don't know if I should even list that stuff, and if so, what value do I put? Some of this gets tricky because they are specific items on the household goods exempt list, like I know you can have one radio. I have two. One is an AM/FM from the 1960's that only gets in FM channels now because it's broken, and the other is a transistor (also from the 60's) that only gets AM, so I keep them both. I don't think I could get a plug nickel for the broken AM/FM one. I've seen far nicer ones for free on craigslist. I could pitch it in the dumpster but then I couldn't listen to any FM stations. This is kind of ridiculous.

Here's what my attorney advised:

Lump items like electronics together. Or household items.

Categories might include "furniture" "electronics" "clothing" etc.

Here's how he said to price them.

If you opened up your home today, without warning, and threw all your crap on the lawn or driveway, without price tags, what would the guy/gal walking down the street in the first couple hours be willing to pay for it?

Not much.

Your mid-century kitchen items, in vogue or not, are just "old kitchen junk" worth maybe 20 cents apiece in this scenario. Simple fact is, most people who showed up at a random garage sale wouldn't know the difference between decent kitchenware and an upturned garbage can lid.

The main point here is that a trustee, should he even try to take your stuff, would sell it pretty close to the above scenario.

I own what I consider to be substantial specialty gear that is exclusive to my industry. Some of the items I paid thousands of dollars for would command 15 bucks at a liquidation sale.

Now, on ebay, with the time to wait, all of my stuff might fetch 12k. If the trustee were willing to come here. Then unbolt it from equipment racks. Then unwire it from other pieces. Then haul 1200 pounds of it down a flight of stairs. Then have a rental truck waiting. Then take it to a storage facility. Then have it appraised. Then make sure the storage facility was secured and humidity controlled to preserve the equipment. Then post it on ebay or in trade magazines. Then wait. Then sell SOME of it for lower than expected. Then RELIST the remaining items. Then repeat. Then collect the money. Then account for it with the US Trustee. Oh, and BK judge would require him to inventory it with serial numbers, purchase price, appraised value, etc. THEN he would have to INSURE it, too, in case the storage unit was burned down or burglarized.

You see the issues? I don't believe any trustee is going to take the time to go through this process in most cases. Now if you had antique Corvettes garaged somewhere, they would be interested.

One man's junk is another man's trasure SOMETIMES. In the case of trustees its ALL junk, unless it has intrinsic, easily recognized value that can be liquidated almost immediately.

Unless you have something that is obviously of high value to even the casual observer, you should value it as though you are pulling up at 7-11 and unloading it as quickly as possible to the first person to walk by chomping on a hot dog.

If you have a painting by Monet sitting in the attic, well, I would just forget you stored it there :)

Also, anything you have claimed for tax purposes that is high value is easily discovered by a trustee. Not so sure on insured items like jewelry. That would, I suspect, be more of an honor system-and I personally would be very disinclined to list my wedding ring.

One other thing. Many people on this board have in fact, it seems, OVERVALUED their items. This can really come back and nail you.

If you look up COLLECTIBLE values on ebay to value your kitchen items, or say a trade magazine for kitchen enthusiasts, you will list values far higher than are reasonable in a "fire sale" liquidation.

THEN the trustee will see an opening. "Why, you have $3,000 worth of ANTIQUE kitchenware? Well, I really don't want to liquidate it. As an alternative, why not BUY IT BACK from your estate, for oh, let's say $2,800?"

Of course, he wouldn't have a shot in hell of really getting that value in a BK auction, but he WOULD have you over the ropes and have all the power. Then, you'd be stuck paying for it, if you wanted to keep it.

I suggest avoiding words like "in vogue" "antique" or "collectible". Those terms only apply to how YOU feel about the items, at least as far as showing them in BK. That sort of terminology also tells the trustee that YOU care a great deal for the items-and might be willing to pay some cash to retain the items.

Trustees aren't junk dealers or electronics wholesalers. The last thing most want/need would be to open a warehouse to store all our stuff.

My 2 cents

DMC

The average American household's value for all appliances, kitchen 'stuff', furniture, etc is $2,000-3,000. Unless you are unlucky enough to live in a district with a trustee who demands an accounting of every item in your home (thank goodness that's extremely rare!), don't nickel and dime yourself.

DMC is right - it's garage sale and ebay prices all the way. Lump your stuff together - don't go through the kitchen figuring out how much one teaspoon will sell for. You'll go crazy, and 99.9% of the trustees don't care. And frankly, the only reason your lawyer will care is if he/she is trying to "tweak" your expenses on the Means Test to your advantage. The more your Means Test shows you have, the greater the likelihood is that it will catch the interest of your trustee. Don't lie, but don't shoot yourself in the foot unnecessarily either! :)

Ask yourself, "Where would I buy an 8 year old sofa??"

Garage Sales, Yard Sales, 2nd hand stores.

Then price accordingly.

While your circa '50's stuff may be all the rage now, it's a fad. 2 years from now it may be passe.

Use low end prices. What you might see if the same thing were selling in your neighbor's yard sale.

Ok, the reason I asked was because of the sticky at the top of this category about it:

"Under the old rules, you could value your property at
roughly what you could get for it at your own garage
sale. The new bankruptcy law uses a new standard:
You must value property at what it would cost to
buy it from a retail vendor, taking the property’s age
and condition into account. (11 U.S.C. §§ 506 and
527(b).) For cars, this “replacement value” will be
the retail amount listed in the Kelly Blue Book or
similar price guides. For other property, you will have
to use the amount for which similar property is sold
on eBay, or at used clothing or furniture stores, flea
markets, and the like."

So that's why I said that the price would vary greatly depending on which retail vendor.

My attorney says that though the wording has changed, the reality of how they do these things is pretty much the same.

I can't see a trustee getting online to look for, say, a 12 year old toaster oven that may no longer be manufactured, tracking down ebay auctions and waiting for the auction to close before finally assessing the value.

In general, it all seems pretty much as before, near as I can tell.

As far as routine household goods and clothing,............ Things are pretty much the same under New Law as it was under Old Law.

Where it can get tricky is with unique items. Things handed down thru the family. Works of art. That kind of thing.

Oh good. That's what I wanted to know. That will make it much easier. What about stuff that really has NO value though? Do you just list it for like 1$, or don't list it at all, or figure out a way to lump it in with something else?

Before you start stressing yourself out too much over the values of your household items, see what happens at your free consult. I was doing the same thing as you are now and when we filed we never had to list any items or value any of our household stuff. It really just depends on how things are done in your distrcit.

Try not to worry too much about this. When we sat down with our attorney's paralegal to go over things, she pretty much filled in all of our numbers for us. When our attorney reviewed stuff, he tweaked some numbers here and there, asked about any high value items like original artwork, etc. I told him we have lots of original artwork, mostly by our children, but a couple of pieces by my mother, who actually is an artist, and he just chuckled. He didn't seem to care much about those things. We bought furniture a couple years ago, but it's nothing special. He just lumped all of our household items together....I don't remember the exact $ amount. We never had to itemize anything in our house. Hope this helps to relieve your stress a little. Let your attorney and/or his staff do this stuff...that's what you're paying them for.

Hoping for brighter skies ahead...

There's one attny here in our town that lists everything.

Sofa in fair condition. Bought new 8 years ago for $500, current value $45. Entertainment Center gifted to Debtor by Debtor's parents 5 years ago. Current value $25.

He's the only one that does that sort of thing.

The rest of the attnys all lump/group items and only list what is specifically requested. Clothes are broke out seperate and grouped as one $$$ amount together. CD's/DVD's. Works of Art. Items specifically requested on the Schedules.

As Broke and Jal said,......... It's really gonna depend on the attny you choose. But most just lump things together.

Yes, you're right. I shouldn't even be reading all this stuff and trying to figure it out. It just leaves me asking questions like whether they are seriously going to make me get rid of one of my old broken radios, and of course the answer is no.

My attorney didn't even have me do an inventory - just a lump sum of "household" items and then asked me to list anything "significant" seperately.

Are you using state or federal exemptions?

I used federal, because I do not own a house. The federal exemptions leave PLENTY of room for household and personal items.

Avoid words like "antique" and "collectible" and "heirloom".

If you have a large and valuable collection of something, expect scrutiny.

Also, remember. No one is going to come to your house and go through your kitchen cabinets. Even if your trustee is one who historically want things not lumped into categories, DO NOT get more specific than "Everyday dishes, pots and pans, utensiles, etc......"