Bank Account Lien?

[Planetary]

I thought your attorney had listed those bank funds as exempt on your petition. The Trustee can not take exempted funds from your account, only the amount that is more than the exempted funds. [/B]

You are correct. Our bank account funds are listed in the filing under the California "Wild Card" provision and fall well below the maximum amount allowed for the exemption ($21,825.00).

Is your attorney a Trustee too? I don't understand his reasoning about not "bothering" the Trustee. I can tell you, I would be sitting ON the attorney's desk until those funds were released.

No, our attorney is not a trustee.

We've been on the phone with our attorney daily. He has said "trustee's don't like to be bothered about cases and bugging them daily won't help." He has been almost useless.

[Floridagail]

This is awful, The trustee should call a asap 341 meeting, and release the funds. Can I ask what state you are in. I am glad I took all my money but 5.00 out of both of my accounts and just had cash on hand . This is so unfair. My attorney warned me about CU and told me keep cash on hand when filing. But never mentioned freezing of assets.
Kick a person when their down. Hope this is resolved soon.

[Planetary]

This is awful, The trustee should call a asap 341 meeting, and release the funds. Can I ask what state you are in. I am glad I took all my money but 5.00 out of both of my accounts and just had cash on hand . This is so unfair. My attorney warned me about CU and told me keep cash on hand when filing. But never mentioned freezing of assets.
Kick a person when their down. Hope this is resolved soon.

I live in California.

[dingdong]

I read something recently that stated WF only freezes accounts if the balance is over 5000.00. I know some people have stated that they haven't had funds frozen with WF, so this may be why. I can't remember where I read it and if I come across the source again, I will post it, but it does seem to make some sense out of why some filers are getting accounts frozen and other aren't.

Don't rely on this info though to feel your funds are secure if there is less than 5000.00 in your WF deposit accounts. If you have deposit acccounts with WF and filing, I would proactively move the funds to protect them in light of Planetary's unfortunate experience.

Hope things get cleared up for you soon, Planetary, sorry you are having to deal with this in this difficult time.


Have you tried calling your mortgage company and explained that WF has frozen your funds? They might forego a late payment entry to your CR if you keep them informed.

[Planetary]

Have you tried calling your mortgage company and explained that WF has frozen your funds? They might forego a late payment entry to your CR if you keep them informed.

Haven't come to that stage yet. We've never missed or been late on a mortgage payment (or any bill for that matter) so we do have a bit of a cushion time-wise in that respect. I figure we'll probably have to contact the mortgage company at the end of next week if the Trustee doesn't release the lien in the next few days.

[dingdong]

HI,

I found this for you. Read the entire case, I just posted a bit about the 5000.00 issue. It might be a little help.

http://www.nysb.uscourts.gov/opinions/alg/132113_12_opinion.pdf

The inadequacy of Bank of America’s policy is highlighted when compared to the policy of Wells Fargo Bank, the sufficiency of which was recently examined by two courts, with different results. See Calvin, 329 B.R. at 605-06; Jimenez, 335 B.R. at 459- 62. It was Wells Fargo’s policy to place an administrative freeze on any account of a newly-filed Chapter 7 debtor with a balance exceeding $5,000. The bank did not restrain
accounts below $5,000 because it believed that any smaller balance would be exempt and of no value or interest to a Chapter 7 trustee. To avoid liability to a Chapter 7 trustee, for accounts with more than $5,000, the bank immediately notified the Chapter 7 trustee of the administrative freeze and asked for directions as to the disposition of the funds.
Calvin, 329 B.R. at 594.

[SCorpPain]

HI,

I found this for you. Read the entire case, I just posted a bit about the 5000.00 issue. I might be a little help.

http://www.nysb.uscourts.gov/opinions/alg/132113_12_opinion.pdf

Good find. Thanks for posting it.

[ready2puke]

I'm so sorry to hear all this..BK is supposed to protect us not make life more difficult. This also doesn't seem legal to me..you've exempted it for G's sake...
After this is over and whatever harm has come to you during this BS..I would think about legal action against WF and the Trustee...after all the Trustee is just a human being and not God !!!! He needs to be accountable!
Was your money in WF exempted in your original paperwork? Or did your attorney amend that and screwed up at the first go around?
You may just have a few suits pending here after your discharge...I'm not sue crazy but this is beyond ridiculous.
Try to have a decent Sunday.

[willbfree]

Good to see BOA lose that case and be required to pay damages. I especially liked the fact that BOA charged the person bounced check fees after they froze her account.

This makes for a very good argument that it's wise to remove your money from a bank account when you file bk. Doesn't matter that the money has been exempted. Banks can't freeze what they don't have.

[eddiep]

I have been following this thread and I am unclear on who froze your account and why. Was it the trustee? Or did WF take it upon themselves to hold your money incase someone wanted to claim it, they have no stake in your money right? I'm confused.

[Floridagail]

I hope by now , your funds are unfrozen.

[Planetary]

HI,

I found this for you. Read the entire case, I just posted a bit about the 5000.00 issue. It might be a little help.

http://www.nysb.uscourts.gov/opinions/alg/132113_12_opinion.pdf

Interesting read. Thanks for posting that link.

Regarding amounts, I should mention that in my two accounts, one savings, one checking, the amounts were roughly $2,000 and $12,000 totally a bit over $14k. Our debt amount is over 80k, all unsecured credit card debt, none having to do with Wells fargo. It is also worth noting that Wells fargo inexplicably left $0 in checking, but $3 in savings. Go figure.

[Planetary]

I have been following this thread and I am unclear on who froze your account and why. Was it the trustee? Or did WF take it upon themselves to hold your money incase someone wanted to claim it, they have no stake in your money right? I'm confused.

Wells Fargo themselves froze our accounts within 3 days of our filing BK Chapter 7. My understanding is their bankruptcy Division actively monitors BK filings by social security number and any time a Wells Fargo account holder's SS# shows up in their database has having a BK filing, they pro-actively freeze funds in that person's account to "hold" funds on behalf of the Trustee until the Trustee either releases those funds in part or in whole or siezes them to pay off the creditors.

We have no debt of any kind with WF - all debt is unsecured credit card debt with other institutions such as BofA. The money that has been frozen totals a bit over 14k and was included in amended paperwork as being protected under the California "Wild Card" exemption.

We have been trying to work with the Trustee assigned to our case to get our accounts unfrozen, however, thus far he and his office has been mostly unresponsive. We were told mid last week our paperwork would be "reviewed" but nothing has changed as of today (Monday).

Our 341 hearing is June 9th.

[eddiep]

WOW, that's all I can say, WOW!

[liz417]

Wow, I've been following this thread (to the OP: I'm sorry you are going through this stress right now...with NO money!) and I am pretty scared! I just opened up a WF checking and savings account this past weekend moving my checks from WaMu (now Chase) who I will BK'ing on....Here I thought I was being "safe" by moving everything...I think I'm going to find a new bank...or at least DON'T have direct deposits into these accounts!
OP: I really hope it all works out for you, please keep us updated!