Inheritance

[Maximo]

Call it whatever you want but my stepmother passed away yesterday....5 days before our first hearing! Now we are looking at a fairly large inheritance that will keep us out of BK. I'm going to call the lawyer today but does anyone know of any history as to how this could be handled? Can we request dismissal? It will probably take 1-2 weeks to actually get any $$$$, one of her assets were very liquid. I just don't want my BK to screw it up for my brother and have the trustee snatch all the money.

[NowImDownInIt]

Wow, I'm sorry about your step-mother... but congrats on being able to conquer the debt demons without BK..

[Scott50]

Not sure how the BK will get dismissed or what if any money the trustee could get his hands on.. The Chapter 13 BK filing will stay on your credit report for seven years and will impact your credit history greatly..

[jtindisguise]

I'm kind of in a similar situation. I have learned from the attorneys what I have dealt with to just keep quiet. If you bring it up now your trustee will want the money for him/herself and then the creditors. I don't like really sharing and I dont want some family members life savings used to pay off my bad mistakes. They didn't intend for the money to be used that way.... at least in my experience.

[woeisme]

I believe you are allowed to voluntarily dismiss a CH 13. I don't believe the trustee can take any more of the inheritance than is your share, so your brother's should not be at any risk.

Even with a will and very clear directions of what goes to who, it takes a lot longer than 1-2 weeks to get $ distributed from an inheritance, 4-6 months would be quick from my experience, 1-2 weeks unheard of. So I think you have time to work on getting your CH 13 dismissed, just hope you don't have arrears of a house or other secured asset that the bank could come after as soon as the automatic stay is lifted, because you might get the CH 13 dismissed long before the money becomes available from the inheritance.

[holding on]

Woeisme makes an excellent point on being sure you have no secured assets that would be in trouble in the interim of seeking and getting a dismissal. Voluntarily dismissing the chapter 13 is definitely an option and then trustee cannot do anything. Not sure how a ch 7 would work.

My mother-in-law recently passed away and it took 30 days to get insurance policy benefits.

[fltoo]

When an unfortunate death happened in our family, liquid assets took less than 10 days to distribute.

Sorry for your loss. No one wants to pay off debts that way.

[rrockinggramma]

even if you dismiss, the trustee may want a piece of your pie. You have to check with your attorney but you might be able to exempt some of it or pay your debt off at 100 percent and DISCHARGE your chapter 13 early because it is already on your credit report and discharge looks better than dismissed.