341 and we get this so-called "diligent" trustee

[Resigned2BK]

Can I ask - is the TT listing the house for less than you owe - so his profit will come from a carve-out fee? ...or is he actually trying to sell for a profit? If he's selling for a profit, did you exempt any equity in the property. Please keep us posted and best wishes.

We are absolutely certain he will do the carve out. The realtor told us she likes to initially post it at a little above market value just to satisfy the bank that they tried to get market value for it, then they lower the price every 2-3 weeks until it starts getting offers. Our place is worth around $225K market (in good repair), so she'll probably list at $230K but personally I don't think our house is a good deal until around $180K given that the trustee and realtor will be tacking on their fees on top of the list price. Our place is only a relatively decent deal at maybe $200K total just because it will be a little bit of a fixer upper.

We were not told anything of carve outs, I've just researched enough to see that on my own. I'm sure these folks really don't want people like us knowing how the sausage making process really works.

[freeatlast09]

Can I ask - is the TT listing the house for less than you owe - so his profit will come from a carve-out fee? ...or is he actually trying to sell for a profit? If he's selling for a profit, did you exempt any equity in the property. Please keep us posted and best wishes.

[Resigned2BK]

We had the realtor over yesterday. We spent days cleaning and decluttering and all she wanted to take a picture of was the outside, the kitchen, and the family room. Go figure. But we ruthlessly made sure she knew about the roof being in bad shape, the critters nesting in our attic going on several years now, and the faulty plumbing in one of the bathrooms. I look at it like if she knows, the trustee will have to know and if he doesn't let a buyer know, the buyer can sue him as he's officially the seller. Perhaps these trustees pulling this garbage can get sued several times when people buy these houses and find problems that might not be disclosed. One can only hope. ;-)

The realtor sounds like someone who almost exclusively does the bankruptcy sales. I had to ask her for her business card. You know how real estate agents are usually shoving you their card when you meet? Not this woman. Probably because she's facilitating people losing their homes prematurely. Anyway, she had a pretty hilarious blog entry ranting about common things people do that doesn't help their house sell. We have 3 out of 4 on her list. LOL! But she didn't seem fazed at the meeting that we have pets (apparently something she doesn't like), we have skeezy carpets, and we have children who aren't terrific about getting their dirty clothes into laundry hampers.

As for timelines, here's where it gets scary. She says in her experience (she has a team of 9 people working under her to keep these things rolling), these trustee sales tend to get a serious offer in 2-4 months. Then the bank takes about 1-2 months after to approve the sale. So we're looking at probably being out of this house this summer which is frightening as heck. After reading the one case here where it took 2 years even with the owner completely moved out of the house, this concept of it being 4-6 months is scary. She also said that she will let us know when it gets to the bank approval process as technically the trustee will only tell our lawyer when we have 10 days to get out of the house completely moved. 10 days????? So if we have a realtor who really doesn't like us, we'd suddenly get notified and have a week to attempt to secure a place, pack, and move. And given the bad credit due to bankruptcy being held indefinitely by this process, sounds like we'd be camping with the inlaws or just plain homeless for awhile. How on earth is it legal to just force someone out of a house with 10 days notice? So anyway, thankfully this woman sounds like she will try to keep us in the loop if we are to take her at her word on this stuff.

[Resigned2BK]

Yup.

[ValleYum]

IMHO, it just plain sucks.

[keepsmiling]

This is just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. For so many reasons.

[keepsmiling]

I am wondering the same thing, ie, can one be sued for contempt or some such if one is not naturally tidy? or cannot afford to make repairs?
We are rather cluttered as well. It would be insanely hard to drum up motivation to clean up or fix up in order to aid an unwanted (possibly unlawful? the jury is still out on this, right?) process.

[ValleYum]

Get a notebook or start a journal or blog somewhere and document, document, document.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about about the clutter...

A question to the attorneys/experts here: Is it Resigned's responsibility within the BK to make this process easy for the Realtor? If the trustee got upset about it, what is the worst thing that could happen? Going before the judge? Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing?

[Resigned2BK]

Update: Trustee wants to list our place to sell. No bothering to appraise, he just wants to get a realtor out to take photos and have it listed ASAP. We live a very cluttered existence and my husband has been sick with flu all week, so this should be fun.

Between the threads here and other research, at least I knew to expect this. By the time we got the call from our atty's new paralegal (who is thankfully not a flake like the last one!), I just assumed it would go this way and wasn't upset about it. But I still am thinking that if our case remains open for a good year or so -- and it probably will -- then I definitely want to take this story to an investigative unit of a local news station. If they can get all hyperventilative about state workers playing Farmville on their work breaks, they need to see where a real abuse in government is happening.

[ValleYum]

Awwww Resigned... this plain just sucks for you guys that your trustee is contemplating this. I will keep my fingers crossed, say prayers and round up all the positive juju I can to send your way so that this is hopefully resolved quickly in your favor. Keep us posted!

[justbroke]

Resigned2BK, I was going to point you to the same thread Des just pointed to. We were so befuddled by another poster's issue with a short sale, that it made us think. Okay, it made some of us furious (including Des).

Hopefully your attorney could be persuaded to rethink his/her position on helping the Trustee.

[freeatlast09]

Trust me when I say the entire Western District of WA has Trustees doing this. Whether the UST is o.k. with this activity remains the unanswered question.

[Resigned2BK]

Good luck. So, did you guys have the same (shifty) tt?
Will be closely following and hoping that this trend won't travel eastwards like the weather

I doubt it. All I had to do late last night was a search of "carve out" with Seattle trustee to immediately find articles from last Fall talking about this trend among many of the trustees that operate out of this part of the state. Valleyum has told me she lives in a different part of the state and it sounds like the trustee wanted to do things like that there too. I just wish I had known this exact terminology when the 341 started so I could have said it to the trustee's face! He was running through about another 15 cases after us in the same hour, so I could've had the benefit of perking the ears of the crowd so they'd remember and search it on their own.

If he does actually do what freeatlasts trustee was doing, I think I'm going to contact an investigative unit of the media if this short sale process ties us up for a good year on our "fresh start". We have an investigative unit here that just loves to go after any abuse they see in local government, I'm sure they would want to run it to try to get another Pulitzer like they did against ferry boat workers getting pay for 4 hour driving commutes daily. LOL.

[keepsmiling]

Good luck. So, did you guys have the same (shifty) tt?
Will be closely following and hoping that this trend won't travel eastwards like the weather

[freeatlast09]

Hi there Resigned2BK,

I'm the OP of the thread that Des pointed you towards. I know exactly what you're going through and I feel your pain & anger. I'm definitely going to follow this thread so please keep us posted.

Best of luck to you.