Is my lawyer really good or should I be concerned?

[ansky0007]

I owe $405k on my home that is worth $480 to $520 by my recent appriasal I just received. I owe over $300k in credit card debt and lawyer is telling me not to worry about the house if I want to keep it.

Here is his reasoning:

He claims even if the trustee decides its worth $520k on the high end of the appraisal, If the trustee decided to sell it the cost to sell it would be around 10% in realtor fee's etc. so that would bring in $468k, We have $40k in home exemptions bringing the total now down to $428k. Lawyer is telling me that there would only be a total of $23,000 left to pay creditors if they sold it.

He is telling me the trustee would give me an opportunity to come up with$23,000 to save them the time and they would be happy?

Does this make sense?

[TEW]

Sound like he knows what he's talking about but I am not a lawyer.
Can you come up with the 23K

[keepmine]

Sounds about right.
I'd do all in my power to build a case for the low end of the apprasial.

[fltoo]

The trustee cannot "decide" what market value of your house is since the buyer decides market value.

What kind of appraisal is it?

Get 3 really good real estate agents to do a comparative market analysis on what has sold in your neighborhood recently and be prepared to present them to the trustee. They will also give you a list of closing costs to sell the house. I am betting you will be fine.

[ansky0007]

Sounds about right.
I'd do all in my power to build a case for the low end of the apprasial.

Yes, The appraisal is based off of all competitive homes sold in the area in the past 3 months. Lawyer said worse comes to worse the trustee could slap a for sale sign on my house and see if they get any offers to get a true resale value. He doubts it would come to this but he wanted to give me every scenario up front. I have family that is willing to give me the $30k +/- to make sure I can pay the difference to keep the home if it comes down to it. If we can plead a case towards the lower end we would not have to pay anything so of course we will try to aim towards the lower end especially with the market right now and the house that sold for $450k was on the market for 10 months and ended up selling $100k lower than the asking price 5 houses down from me.