Bankruptcy Repo

My husband and I filed a bankruptcy that finalized June 4, 08. My car was repossed in August 08.  We were given no warning.  They said that we hadn’t paid in three months.  They worked with us before with late payments.  In May we were up half a payment that month and made the other half payment that month.  With my husband out of a job it was hard to make a full payment.  So the next two months we only made a half payment.  Which put us behind 1 full payment by July. 

We told them that we would be able to make July’s and August’s payment all at once, by the end of August, from the economic stimulus payment we would recieve.  Our payments were $365. So we would owe them $730. Well right before the end of August two men came to repossess our car. 

We called them and they said it hadn’t been paid in three months.  We called Truepay, which removes money from our bank account and places it with the car loan bank account.  They had went out of business!  We had no idea where our payments went.  They sent our account to Speedpay, another middle man.  But they had no idea about the payments either. We told our bank that we would not make payments until it was settled. 

They then told us that our car was repossessed because my husband had told them we weren’t going to make July and August’s payment, when we said we were going to pay in full.  They even said we were late every month because we made our payments on the 5th and 20th and they didn’t accept half payments and even though they said payments were do by the 27th, they told us that the date varied every month!

The guys took our car and it was sold about a month and a half later.  It was sold for half of what we had left on the loan!  Now we can’t get ahold of the bank to make payment arrangements.  Though we can’t afford them since we had to get another vehicle and pay a high interest.  Its not even as good as vehicle as what we had.  We went from 2006 Hundyaii Sonata to a 2003 Chevy Cavalier.

Even though we agreed that payments would stop until the car was sold, the bank still made the new middle man take out the next two payments.  They said we verbally agreed on them taking them out.  We did get those two payments returned and had a stop placed on the bank and on Speedpay.

Can we do anything about the middle man taking out money?  And what about those half payments that were never posted to their bank?  Was the bank with the loan in the wrong? 

I have two children and one on the way.  My husband is getting deployed soon and we need the money. I am afriad that they will garnish his wages.  Or even take our tax return which i need to pay my student loan that has to be paid.  It feels like we were trapped!

Kimberly

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Hi Kimberly,

There’s a lot going on in your post.  You’d have to talk to your bankruptcy attorney.  Did you sign a reaffirmation agreement?  Did the lender follow bankruptcy procedures with a motion to lift stay and repossess the car?  Also, check your local rules of repo.  You also need to talk to an attorney about a breach of contract for the “middle man taking out (your) money”. 

As far as your husband’s deployment, check into the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.  You may be able to have the interest rate reduced on the 2003 Chevy Cavalier down to 6% (as well as other debts where he was an obligor or cosigner) and additionally there are protections against execution of judgments against servicmembers.

Thanks for the questions and talk to your bankruptcy attorney.

Paul

This author is not an attorney and this information should not be considered legal advice.  Please consult an attorney for legal advice.