Legal Question in Bankruptcy in California

How do you dismiss a property in escrow with a prev Ch 13 BK

I am a real estate agent who has a client that has their home in escrow. It was not disclosed that they filed ch. 13 BK (ind. payment plan) from 12/2000 nor was not on the prelim. It was discovered and escrow was put on hold. The BK atty said they would file and ''application to sell'' to the judge, it would get signed off (''It's routine..'') and it would take a few days. Here we are 30+ days later and now we are told the judge denied it due to fact he wants an additional declaration. What exactly does that mean? He also mentioned something about wanting to know if there were any other objections to the sale. What does that mean as well? These poor buyers are waiting and we can't seem to get a straight answer on any time frames to dismiss/discharge the BK. Can you tell me what shoukd have been done and any time frames? Sorry- I know very little about BK's :-)


Asked on 3/09/02, 12:36 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Victor Hobbs Victor E. Hobbs

Re: How do you dismiss a property in escrow with a prev Ch 13 BK

As I understand your question the sellors are in a Ch. 13 plan and selling a piece of property. The request was put before the judge, and the judge wanted an additional declaration (under penalty of perjury) before he/she will approve the request. That is very simple, and the attorney should have been able to draft that as soon as he/she returned to their office and then obtained the signature of the party making the decalaration. (A declaration is a statemnt in writing under penalty fo perjury by someone.) That's of course if the attorney didn't have other work that had a greater priority. Then it would have been the matter of resetting the motion or petition on the next available date. That would have met the time constraints for hearing such matters. Then mailing out all the papers and notices to all the interested parties. I can't imagine the resetting taking more than 30 days. Normally 21 to 25 days is sufficient if the attorney was able to get to the matter immediately.

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Answered on 3/09/02, 9:31 am


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