Auto Repossession and Negative Equity...

[ah0828]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ

So I'm in sales and my annual income has been cut in half year over year since I'm mainly commission oriented. I have an expensive vehicle which i can no longer afford. I'm 2 mos behind in my payments and am considering a voluntary reposession. The problem is that I'm $11k or more negative equity in the vehicle and the bank says they will put my car up for auction and any negative equity will be billed to me personally. What happens if I dont pay them? Obviously I have no cash to pay that. Any advice or experience?

 

[CourtClerk]

What will happen is that they will sue you.

 

[ah0828]

What will happen is that they will sue you.

are you sure...that's not what it seemed like when i researched it online.

 

[Zigner]

are you sure...that's not what it seemed like when i researched it online.

You're right - they might not. But they sure can sue you if they so desire!

 

[annajosie]

They can sue you and if they do, they can get a judgement against you.

If that should happen, they can possibly garnish your wages, freeze your bank account and in general, make your life miserable.

Judgements are very bad news. Good luck to you and I'm hoping they don't sue you.

 

[mhdcma]

In a worst case scenerio, a bankruptcy may protect you from that. With you losing alot of your income, if you have other outstanding debts as well, it would not hurt to contact a bankruptcy attorney.

 

[cosine]

Since you are in sales, you might want to try selling your own car yourself. Maybe you can't get its full value right now in this bad economy, but perhaps you can get a good bit more than the bank could get at auction (which tends to be low). Then use all that money to pay the bank against your debt to at least reduce the balance they are going to try to get from you (by whatever means). Keep in mind that the bank may make that difficult for you to do since they have a lien on the vehicle. But if you can at least get an offer in writing and present that to the bank, you may be able to get them to agree to this (you arguing they could never get that much from auction, whether you know that to be the case or not). Remind them that few people are buying cars these days.