Bank Account Lien?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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]

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.

[SCorpPain]

It's simply unfathomable that this Trustee who has been made aware of our situation including our son's condition as well as our entire financial condition doesn't move on this. My gut feeling is the Trustee is stalling until our BK hearing in early June when he can actually seize and pay out the money to creditors (it's all unsecured credit card debt).

I sorry you must go through this. Over the last few months I have come to the conclusion that Wells Fargo has no heart. This case just reinforces that belief.

[StartingOver08]

Account still is frozen. No word this week from the Trustee. Our BK attorney says to not "bother" the trustee. As I noted around Wednesday, when I talked on the phone with the Trustee's office, I was told that he'd "review" our case paperwork that afternoon and we wouldn't hear back until he'd made any kind of decision to either continue the lien or release any or all the funds....

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.

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.

[Planetary]

Well, it's been a week now and no change.

Account still is frozen. No word this week from the Trustee. Our BK attorney says to not "bother" the trustee. As I noted around Wednesday, when I talked on the phone with the Trustee's office, I was told that he'd "review" our case paperwork that afternoon and we wouldn't hear back until he'd made any kind of decision to either continue the lien or release any or all the funds.

It's simply unfathomable that this Trustee who has been made aware of our situation including our son's condition as well as our entire financial condition doesn't move on this. My gut feeling is the Trustee is stalling until our BK hearing in early June when he can actually seize and pay out the money to creditors (it's all unsecured credit card debt).

Meanwhile, we're down to cashing our weekly $450 unemployment check which is our sole source of money right now at a liquor store (and paying a fee to do so) and wondering how we'll pay our mortgage, utilities, food etc totaling about $5,000 a month.

Chapter 7 = "Fresh Start" indeed.

[roozterdvx]

planetary, sorry for your troubles and suffering over this.

luckily, we don't have any accounts with WF except our mortgage which we are walking away from.
if we did have any accounts with them though, we'd be moving money right now even with the little we have in the bank...it wouldn't sit with them for a minute longer than it would take me to get to a branch!

I hope more people see this thread and pull their money out of WF whether it's $2 or $2,000,000!

[SCorpPain]

This is standard practice for Wells Fargo.

This tidbit about Wells Fargo has been worth every minute of time I have spent reading these forums. My business and personal checking accounts are there. As I close the business and file personal bk I will certainly keep this in mind.

Thanks!

[Floridagail]

Please keep us updated.