Question for those who intended to keep car and decided to surrender after 341

[Dirk Squarejaw]

I had my 341 on 9/19/08 and stated that I intended to keep my car. However, after alot of thinking and the fact that I don't use the car enough to warrant the monthly payment and insurance, I would like to surrender it. I have not reaffirmed it.

However, I would like to know:

- When should I surrender it?
- Will this affect the outcome of my BK7?
- If Ford Motor Credit asks for a lift of stay, won't the trustee now know I have an extra $367/mo that he could have?

[b_girl]

Do you have a BK attorney, or are you pro se? If you have an attorney, I would check with him/her about how losing this payment would affect your ratios (money allotted for bills vs. money available after bills). Too much money leftover monthly may very well be a problem for a Ch 7. In our case, we initially wanted to keep a vehicle which we later decided to turn in. We checked with our attorney and since we were very much in the negative, it did not affect our BK case at all.

As for when to turn it in, it's up to you, as long as there is no relief of stay request from your lender. In our case, we stopped paying in April, filed in June, and are currently on day 60 post 341. Our lender has not filed with the court so we still have the vehicle and are using it daily. We should be discharged any day now, so we're preparing to contact the lender ourself and arrange a handover in order to avoid a midnight repo. We also had another vehicle which we did not reaffirm and once we replaced it, we handed it back early by dropping it by our lender's office.

[AngelinaCatHub]

I understand by another thread I read here, Ford will not let you pay through and only accepts a reaffirmation. If you could pay through, then after your discharge, turn it in. You would be done then. 'Hub