Expert: Terry Leeders - 8/24/2009

Question
Customer filed chapter 7 which happened to include a vehicle which are the lien holder. Customer will retain vehicle and reaffirm the  debt.  Not clear on what this mean for us as the lien holder and is there any legal way to retrieve our vehicle. In the past we have dealt with cases where we received payments usually every three months or so and usually it was not much of a payment to speak of.

Answer
You can send a reaffirmation agreement to the client if they are current. The debt would survive, and you can collect on the debt based on your state collection laws.  If the debtor is delinquent, you can bring a motion to modify the automatic stay, so that you can then repossess the vehicle.