Bk Effective Date

[ZZGAMAZZ]

My research reveals that the BK filing date should be the effective date of the report.

Question: Doesn't the client's attorney need to know before filing the opinion of value of the real property in order to determine whether the client will qualify for BK protection based upon the market value relative to the outstanding mortgage amount, presuming that the real property is the client's most significant asset?

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I've never found a court to care what date it was so long as it is semi-recent. Ask the client what they want. You work for the client not the bankruptcy court. The terms of any such loan are not relevant to the value.

 

[Walter Kirk]

I've never found a court to care what date it was so long as it is semi-recent. Ask the client what they want. You work for the client not the bankruptcy court. The terms of any such loan are not relevant to the value.

Ditto......

 

[Scott Kibler]

Ones I've done, effective date is date of inspection, never any other date.

 

[hastalavista]

It depends.
For Chapter 13, I believe the requirement is the date of the BK filing.
For Chapter 7, a different date ( I forget which one).
The reason I say this is because I work for a firm that represents lenders on their 2nd liens. Usually, the debtors are going through Chapter 13 and the attorney's always order the valuation as of the BK declaration date. However, I recently had a case where it was a Chapter 7. Mine was the only appraisal that was accepted into evidence (the other appraiser wouldn't testify), and the judge (who was the most squared-away judge I've ever seen in person) questioned the attorney why the appraisal had an effective date of X. The attorney said because that was the filing date. The judge then read off some citation from the BK rules and cited that the date should be Y. The judge accepted the appraisal and we went forward. After the hearing, my client, the other attorney, and I were talking; the other attorney had no clue about that rule either (he had his appraisal, inadmissible, completed on the BK filing date as I did).

But, even when I do it as-of the BK filing date and the other side does it as-of the date of inspection, I've yet to see a judge dismiss the one because of the wrong date.

If you are working with the attorney, I'd go with what they tell you.
f you are working directly with the debtor, I'd tell them to be very sure about the valuation date before I proceeded.

Good luck!

 

[Joyce Potts]

As I've said before, when it comes to dueling appraisers in a BK, the filing date is crucial to avoid a difference in effective dates. That's established by case law, not statute. I don't have the specific case, but an attorney that had engaged me, learned it the hard way when the two appraisals were vastly different, but also six months apart. I got paid for a whole new appraisal, plus trial prep, testifying, etc., so the effective dates were the same. Have the attorney that engaged you research it.

 

[Walter Kirk]

Always ask the lawyer before you start work? If a date prior to yhe inspection date is required do a retrospective appraisal.

 

[Joyce Potts]

Doesn't that sort of go without saying?