I think I messed up

[iupui1299]

Well, we have our installment loan for our mobile home through our personal bank. We are filing BK in about a week. I had been searching for a new bank to get a checking account with but had not gotten around to it. I was 2 weeks late with this months installment payment since we are letting the home go ( we were told by lawyer to stop paying). Well, I check my statement today and they took out the payment....can they do that...they also tacked on late fees. Please advise!

[anonymuse]

They aren't under an automatic stay if you haven't filed your bk papers yet.

How did they have your routing information to get the payment? Have you been paying them with automatic withdrawl previous to this? And have you given them notice to stop performing these withdrawls?

[iupui1299]

We don't have any automotic withdrawals through them but they are the bank that our checking account is with. We had X amount of dollars in our account and they needed X amount plus late fees.....so they went ahead and took it out. I thought they would need our permission in order to do that.

[Minnymouth]

Stop and do not put anything else in this checking account...... if need be withdraw and deposit only into another checking account somewhere else.... then get your BK filed. Be sure you deposit the exact amount in a new checking account that you had in the old one.... then start paying your bills again.
You don't want a lot in a checking account when you file..... pay some of your utilties, buy groceries, etc..... fix the car......

The bank has no authorization to make an automatic withdrawl UNLESS you gave persmission to do so. Check your paperwork on your checking account and see if part of their checking account rules is the ability to withdraw funds if you owe their bank for something.

Keep us posted.
Minny

[SinkingFast]

It's called Cross Collateralization, or some such Banking Legaleeze.

Probably somewhere in the fine print, in your mortgage on your home, is a statement allowing the Bank to withdraw payments from your checking/savings accts to cover the payments. That's very common with Banks. Others have run into it when they have CC's with the same bank. The person files BK, and the Bank immediately siezes the funds in their checking/savings to cover the CC debt.

You need to immediately open a new bank acct elsewhere, as others have said.

But, DO NOT close that bank acct you currently have open. When you file BK, you have to declare all bank accts you've closed within the last year prior to filing BK. Leave some small amount of change in there and do not make any more deposits to that bank acct.

In order to not look suspicious, if you have a Debit Card, purchase Money Orders from Wal-Mart to pay your bills. Or groceries. Or whatever. You can maybe even go drive-thru and cash a $100 or $200 check, if that's your routine. But, don't just waltz into the bank and withdraw all your money. Don't tip your hand to the bank what you're doing.

Get yourself set up with a bank that you are not going to file BK against. Not one of your other BK Creditors.

I know it sounds paranoid, but I'm doing lots of things that way right now.

We're bailing on our current Landlord early. The Landlord from Hell. Not seeing out the remainder of our Lease. I called the electric company the other day to set up a shut-off date and then hung up while I was on hold. Our new Landlord said something that made me do that. She said their company had set up with the utilities that when Tenants move out, the accts automatically revert to the Landlord's company. That way the utilities are always on at the Condo. The utilities were on here when we looked at the house, a month before we moved in. If I'd given the power company a shut-off date, they might have called our current Landlord and "confirmed" with her that she'd be taking over the electric bill again. So I hung up.

[Minnymouth]

Smart move.......

[SinkingFast]

Oh, Minny,.............

Living like this is tough!

We're just used to doing business staight forward. But now we have to think of the potential consequences of each and every move we make. In regards to getting out of this house early. In regards to the BK.

It's kinda like the chain reaction you start once you start lieing. Having to remember who you told what to so you don't get caught in your own lie.

And our kids are sworn to secrecy about the move. They can't tell their friends. We don't know who's related to who here. Who's friends with who. If the kids told, it could easily get back to our Landlord.

Friends know we'll be moving when our lease is up. Friends know we've been looking. But that's it. Good thing too. The couple that moved in next door when the Landlord moved out have a teenaged daughter who drives to school. Our daughters have seen her leave in the morning same time as they do. Daughter #1 even knows where the neighbor's daughter parks her car at school. If our daughters had said anything to their friends, word could have spread at school and our Landlord could possibly know in advance.

Ah, the tangled webs we weave.

[iupui1299]

Our lawyer told us to go and close this checking account and open a new one elsewhere. He told us that a month ago we just didn't get around to it fast enough and I guess are learning a very expensive lesson.

[robivi3]

Sinking, you are the reason I need to listen to my wife more often. Alot of mistakes dicounting her sage advice, women do have the smarts. men are alot more impulsive.

[SinkingFast]

Sinking, you are the reason I need to listen to my wife more often. Alot of mistakes dicounting her sage advice, women do have the smarts. men are alot more impulsive.

It's not smarts, Robivi. It's "Woman's Intuition".