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How long can trustee keep case open? When can I sell my house?

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confusedaz

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? AZ

I filed for Ch 7 BK in '03 and rec'd my discharge in 7/04. The case has not been "closed" yet and I am being told that if I sell my house before the case is closed the Trustee will take everything over the Homestead amount. Here are my questions:

Is there anything I can do to get the case closed? (It has been over a year since the Discharge.) How long can a case stay open? If I do wait to sell the house until the case is closed, can they still reopen it and take some money? If so, how long do they have to reopen a closed case? Will I ever be able to start saving money again or will they take any money I try to save indefinitely?

Thank you for any help you can offer.
 


dbake

Junior Member
I would like to know if anyone has advice or an answer to this question, also.

What is this about the case being open after discharge? And what about taking money saved? These comments have me a bit worried. If anyone can offer advice, please do!
 

djohnson

Senior Member
Why is the case still open? You have received a discharge right? Typically the discharge in a chapter 7 is the end result.
 

confusedaz

Junior Member
When Can I Sell My House?

According to the Trustee, since there were assets to disperse (a tax refund from 2 years ago) that is what is keeping the case open. The Trustee won't say why they haven't dispersed the assets yet, or when they might. Yes I rec'd the Discharge papers over a year ago but until that tax refund is sent out to the creditors the case can't be closed. But what is taking so long??? When is this ever going to be over??? I want to sell my house and move but can't...
 

confusedaz

Junior Member
When Can I Sell My House?

Had an attorney but every time I call she is very short and gets me off the phone asap. She says there is nothing I can do but wait it out. Can't tell me anything regarding how long this could take, if there are any statutes of limitations, time lines or anything else. Also she says she never had a case with assets before so she doesn't know what to tell me. For the record, the tax refund was not that big...a couple of thousand dollars.
 
Florida is my state. I am in the same boat. My discharge was June 18th of 2004. Mine was a chapter 7 asset case. The case is still not closed and I want to sell home and move to different state. I am afraid to because I don't know if trustee will come after any profits that we will make on sale of home.
I don't know why it is taking so long to close.
 

confusedaz

Junior Member
When Can I Sell My House?

Hi, Patti, sorry to hear you are in the same boat. Do you know if the assets have been distributed yet? Mine have not and I cannot figure out what is taking so long. I live my life worrying that they are going to force the sale of our house, even though we got discharged over a year ago. People I talk to are shocked to find out that there is a difference between getting your discharge and getting the case closed. Everyone thinks that once you get your discharge you are free to live your life again. In fact, last year, our "attorney" told us that once we had our discharge we were free to sell our house and keep all the money. Good thing I did some checking on my own as it turns out that we can only keep the Homestead amount and we have put WAY more money into the house than that.
 

chris7

Member
This may be completely different than your case... We had filed as no asset (have no idea why our lawyer did this when we were clearly asset) so creditors were told not to sent in proof of claim with original notice. I had been checking pacer so I knew that for months after our discharge the request for proof of claim had not gone out. We also had not heard anything about how or when to turn over assets. Our attorney just kept telling us to sit tight and the trustee would contact us when he wanted the assets. I eventually contacted the trustees assistant and she told me that the reason nothing was happening was that we had not turned in assets and that that was our responsibility to do, the trustee would not contact us. So when we quit listening to our lawyer and took care of things directly with the trustees office, things started moving in our case. We did, however, have to have our lawyer contact the trustee and give permission for him to deal directly with us. Just from browsing pacer I see cases that stall out for a really long time and don't get closed and I wonder if there is something that has not been done that the people don't know about, and the lawyer is clueless about.
 
How can I tell if the trustee has distributed the assets? Is there something on pacer?
I just want this mess over with. It has gone on long enough.
It does seem now also, the lawyer does not want to be bothered anymore.
Would someone please respond and let me know where to find out if the assets were given out.

Thanks
 

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