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Phoenix Home Invaded by 4 Gunmen: Not By a Bankruptcy Trustee!

By Joseph McDaniel, Esq.

When I saw the headline, "Phoenix Home Invade by 4 Gunmen", I had several thoughts.

One was the hope that everybody in the house survived the ordeal. That's gotta be scary.

Another is one of those questions I'm seldom asked anymore, because I've answered it in this blog, which is "will the bankruptcy trustee come to my house"?

My answer was always that it can certainly happen, but seldom. And in my cases, while it hasn't happened yet, it may yet happen.

In fewer than ten cases in my 30 years of practice, a bankruptcy trustee has asked an appraiser or auctioneer to visit with my clients, by appointment.

And, remember, the bankruptcy process is a rule-based system.

And in general, the rule is that you get to keep the exempt stuff, and the over-encumbered stuff, and the worthless stuff, in your Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case.

But you gotta remember the wisdom of "Roadhouse": opinions differ.

And you may believe you have a worthless asset, while the trustee may have a different belief.

So there's a chance that your ball of string (only the thirty-fifth largest in the world, but still an honorable mention at the Ball of String Convention) will draw the attention of a bankruptcy trustee, especially a new trustee, who hasn't yet been disappointed by losing money on estates that he decided to administer, only to discover that the value of all the non-exempt assets was inadequate to make the case a winner for him!

In many ways, it is a joy to deal with a trustee who is a veteran of the bankruptcy wars, because she has a realistic idea of the values of many used items (like a couch that has seen kittens and puppies over the years).

And if the new trustees are sometimes enthusiastic, who can blame them?

Good judgment, after all, comes from experience; and experience comes from...bad judgment!

And all of us have the opportunity in our lives to learn good judgment from our experiences, whether we're a debtor, a trustee, or a bankruptcy lawyer in Phoenix!

p.s. my hope for you this day is that if somebody comes into your home to review the value of your stuff, it's a bankruptcy trustee, and not 4 armed gunmen!

Full post as published by Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney Blog on February 22, 2011 (boomark / email).