Do you always have to have an auction?

[ezgo68]

I have an appointment with an attorney on Jan. 3. I think I qualify for Chapter 7 because our income is below the medium for Missouri. We have a home but no equity in it (it is a double wide trailer). Own one van and are making payments on a car that I co-signed with my 19 year old son. I am driving the car. We don't have anything else of great value but we do have 17 years of "Stuff" accumulated.

Is an auction automatic with a Chapter 7? Will a Trustee actually come to my house and take inventory?

I will be asking the attorney these questions but I am very anxious and this whole thing is all I can think about 24/7.

[HHM]

I think your confusing an estate auction with bankruptcy. An estate auction occurs when someone dies and there are no heirs, or the heirs do not want the stuff. An auction of "stuff" almost NEVER happens in Bankruptcy. Reason being, is that your state law (and federal law), provides you with a series of asset exemptions. An asset exemption is where you allowed to keep certain items of personal and real property up to a certain value. The trustee "can" come out to your house and inventory it, but it almost never happens. Household goods are not worth vey much and they are a pain in the but to try and sell. So the trustee is not interested in taking your general household items.

About the only time I have heard of a trustee going out to someones house is if the person ran a business and the trustee wants to make sure the debtor is not hiding non-exempt business assets at the house.

[SinkingFast]

You'd be surprised how little 17 years of stuff can be worth.

In Missouri, you have $3K for personal property. If you file Joint, you can double that.

Using garage sale, yard sale, and 2nd hand store prices, the average household is only worth about $2500. Maybe a bit more or a bit less according to your geographical location.

That's provided you don't have any expensive assets. Like fur coats, expensive pieces of jewelry, valuable antiques, and such.

The value of households does vary by location, and what Courts expect to see, so you definitely wanna run this by attnys as you go thru your Consults.