One More Vehicle Questions

[ICEHOUSE]

I know I have mentioned this car thing before.....but I ran some numbers
and hopeing someone who have already been through BK can give me
some good news LOL. MY old truck is work roughly 2500.00 Our state only
lets you use state exemptions and it would be 1200.00 for a vehicle here in
SC My question is do they actually take your vehicle if its the only transportation you have? If so can you like make payments for the difference
in the exemption and value? and keep the car,,,, gosh this is frustrating

[krobin02]

Yes, you may usually offer to make payment of the difference to the trustee in order to keep the vehicle.

[ICEHOUSE]

do mean like payments each month? I wont have the 1300 to pay the difference after I pay the lawyer

[SinkingFast]

Trustees have costs to sell. They pay a company to handle that for them. And they quick sell as well. So the truck won't bring the full $2500 and it'll cost the Trustee about 10%, roughly, to sell.

If your truck is old, high mileage, the Trustee may well abandon it outright. Or the Trustee could offer to settle the difference between your exemption and the value of the vehicle. But the Trustee probably won't take payments. Most times, they want a cash lump sum settlement. Trustees don't care where the money comes from or how you get it either.

[ICEHOUSE]

ok, thanks for the help... I think I will try to save the money now and hopefully he wont take it lol......one more question> How does the trustee
get the value? Does he take my word or the KBB report I print out? Or does
he simply research it himself?

your the greatest

[SinkingFast]

The attny that files your BK for you will set the value. Some attnys use KBB. Our attny uses Edmunds.com and averages all 3 values. Wholesale/Trade-in, Private Party sale, and Retail, to get the value.

Generally, the Trustee takes the amount the attny lists as the value. Occassionally, the Trustee will not believe the petition and ask for a 3rd party appraisal. If you had a Benz or a Porsche you were trying to keep, that might happen. An old Ford pick-up, probably not. Unless you were trying to sneak thru an unrealistically low value.