Asset Appraisal Florida - Middle District

[Newday1]

We have a house that shows $163,000 taxed assessed value. We paid $164,000. We are claiming the Homestead Exemption for it anyway, so I am not sure if it matters or not.

My spouse is filing solo. This means we get $1,000 for property assets.

I am sure we will have a PP come out to the house as we own a 2600 sq ft house with 5 bedrooms.

The funny thing is that we did not get into debt from charging up credit cards for furniture to fill our house. We go to garage sales (cash), craigslist (cash), garbage day picks and dumpster picks. Our debt came from having to pay $4,000 for the past 5 years in taxes for my spouse (we don't get a tax refund, always pay), groceries, medical expenses, car repairs, etc. We basically kept hoping for an increase in salary but when we had our daughter we took a pay cut due to going part-time. So our cost of living kept increasing and our ability to keep up with it took a big hit.

My question is that I already know we will have a red flag on our case due to the size of our home but do you have any insight into what the process is like to go through a PP Appraisal?

The room I am sitting in, I am typing on a computer my dad gave me 5 years ago, on a desk pulled out of the trash, a lamp out of the trash, three bookcases out of the trash and one armoir we bought at Best Buy 7 years ago in Michigan that was a display model and had damage so we paid $150 for it. I think we put that on AMEX. We also have an exercise room with two of the pieces coming from the trash (weight bench - nice one and an elliptical.) How in the world do these things get appraised?

I know it can't be garage sale prices because an appraiser in Florida already had a post that he puts a value on them over garage sale prices. What are your thoughts?

Next question: Does the appraiser open every cabinet, go through every drawer? Bathroom closets, vanities? Do they look in medicine cabinets? I have always been pretty private and most people would never know where our stuff comes from. We don't talk about it because although it is practical and resourceful, not everyone appreciates it. Now an appraiser is going to come to our house and it just feels uncomfortable to me. We don't have anything to hide it just part of the process I guess.

If you have any personal stories of how it went for you , that would be helpful.

I wish I knew how much they would charge me to buy it back. We shall see. Wouldn't it be funny if they charged us to buy back garage sale, Craigslist and dumpster finds? I guess I could let it all go, its just a hassle. But I understand bk is not supposed to be a fun time.

Thank you for any and all feedback...

[justbroke]

I'm only going to address the Homestead exemption. If you do not have any equity, then you do not "receive any benefit" from the homestead exemption. That means that under the homestead exemption in Article X Sec 4, you are entitled to $4,000 for other property. That is $4,000 for each of you and your spouse to use as a wildcard.

You may want to start consulting with several local Bankruptcy attorneys in Florida for more details.

In a Chapter 13, I have never ever in my life read about any Florida Chapter 13 (Standing) Trustee doing ANY appraisal on personal property. In a Chapter 13, you do not have any red flags that I see. The size of the house does not matter. Generally, in Florida, your home is always necessary for the reorganization of you (the debtor). If it were a $500,000 home, that could be different. (My home was worth about $500K when I filed and it was not an issue in my Chapter 13.)

You are filing with an attorney, right?

[AngelinaCat]

You are filing with an attorney, right?

Please say that you are. You have a situation that is apparently way more complex than what we are used to dealing with.

However, I will tell you that certain parts of Florida Middle District, are FAR more restrictive than other parts. So you need to tell us which courthouse you report to before we can begin to make 'educated recommendations' for you.

[Newday1]

I just want to say that I appreciate any feedback you have.

Oh yes, we have an attorney. We report to the Courthouse that is in the SW part of Florida.
I did not realize it would be so complex.

AngelinaCat, what makes our case complex?

JB, do you know if the recorded tax assessed record on the house is what the TT uses to determine if there is equity, or do they go by what a recent CMA?

As I reflect over our situation, I think I see a couple of things that could make it complex as you mentioned:

1.) We are over the median income by about $1,900 due to a couple of bonuses on my end - this will push us into a 13. I guess this may add to complexity as the bonuses are not annual, just that where I work had a better year than they expected and had extra money to give to employees. It could happen again, but it is unlikely to be repeated.

2.) We have a large house square footage wise which our attorney already told us would likely be picked for an audit. That would add another layer of complexity. Also, the house on the tax records shows that it is appraised for less than what we owe on it. My question for the attorney is does the TT go by tax assessed value or what it could be sold for to determine equity?

3.) We have a lot of nice looking furniture that we have had for years, we just are really adept at finding things we like and having all of our decor flow and look good w/o putting lots of money into it. Our things look nice, not high-end, but used nice. It is amazing, absolutely amazing to me all of the good things that are just tossed by the wayside...So, how the PP will look at it all, I don't know. My guess is that they don't care where it came from, they just care what they could sell it for.

4.) We did buy new SS appliances 2.5 years ago. When we bought the house the dishwasher and the stove / oven broke. So, that was a need at the time but it will raise the Property Appraisal amount I am sure.

5.) I know that this is not what my post was originally about but I am also concerned that we won't qualify at all for a 7 or 13 b/c we are barely a 13 with income and "if" I did the means test on NOLO correctly, we don't have $180 or more DMI. It is scary how little we have left over - basically we are in the red each month.


I feel really sad tonight...I think I am realizing the weightiness of the journey that is before us right now. I currently have an 815 fico score. My spouse has always had around a 799. We always pay our bills. We were going to still pay on our CC's this go around and kept saying no way are we going to file BK. Every opportunity for my spouse to close on his commission based income is falling short though, and this is an ongoing issue. I have no idea how we made it through the summer. We are at a precipice and are about to fall off financially. We have been able to pay off CC debt in the past, but this is new territory for us. We have not been able to get a handle on it. Our debt is elusive and it is pulling us into a financial black hole. It is about $55,000 CC. Our vehicles are both in my name, both 08's (a chevy and a saturn). We have about $10,000 left to pay on the chevy and around $13,000 on the saturn. The saturn was in an accident a year and a half ago. I am not sure how the vehicles play out into all of this. If they are in my name and my spouse is filing, can they be claimed as exemptions? Does that make our case more complex.

I am wracking my brain to see if there is anything else that might make things more challenging for us in the BK process, but I can't think of anything.

I can only think of these things: our house (is the tax assessed value compared with outstanding mortgage what they base the equity on or is it a recent CMA?), our assets in the house, the cars being in my name and not in my spouse's who is filing, and the Means Test results.

Alright, this is long enough. Thank you to anyone for any feedback. I am a bit nervous, but I need to pray and rest in my God tonight. I know we are not the only ones going down this path...