sued by credit card company

[orangeandi]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? florida
i have been sued by amex for breach of contract. i have a fiancee who is not my wife, so she does not have anything to do with this issue. but we have a truck on both names, it says on the title: me OR fiancee. my question is: if anything goes wrong at court, can they take the truck as a collection? since its on both names, can my truck be saved by that?
thanks for the answer.

 

[Debt Guy]

It depends on how much equity you have in the vehicle. If it is paid for or you don't owe much compared to the market value, they might look at seizure of the vehicle.

In a seizure, the creditor must pay off any loan secured by the vehicle and then pay you cash for your exemption. You have a $1000 personal property exemption. Most people use that for their car.

If you don't have a lot of equity, they probably will not be interested since the cost of picking it up, getting it ready for sale, the costs of the sale, can get pretty expensive.

Lets take a couple of examples so you can see how it works:

Value $10,000
Loan $0
Exemption $1000
Sales Cost $1500
Left over for creditor -- $7500 -- yes, they wold take the vehicle

or

Value $10000
Loan $8000
Exemption $1000
Sales Cost $1500
Left over for creditor -- $0 -- they would actually lose $500

or

Value $10000
Loan $6500
Exemption $1000
Sales Cost $1500
Left over for creditor -- $1000 -- they probably would not mess with it for an amount that small -- or they might -- I think not but it could go either way

In any event, they cannot do anything until after a judgment has been awarded.