Author	[Modern View]
LAA 01-19-2013 08:52:22 86.51.147.113 Report to Moderator	I thought you were on here a week or two ago questioning other peoples morals because they tried to make an honest dollar and now your advising someone to steal a tractor and to have his father file chapter 7 to ensure he relieves himself of all responsibility regarding debts he incurrred in good faith, unbelievable. [Reply]   [No Email]
JD Seller 01-19-2013 10:38:19 208.126.196.144 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to LAA, 01-19-2013 08:52:22   LAA You are wrong. 1) The father is dead broke and has already gone under. It sounds like the first mortgage holder has already sold the farm ground out. He has very few if any assets left. So the only recourse is bankruptcy for him. HE already is broke. Unless he wants to be paying the second mortgage hold out of his Social Security checks he needs to clean the slate now. 2) The tractor sounds like it is being hid now. I told the son to get it off the friend's property and then check to see if there is a lien on it. THEN HE needs to go to that bank and make them a fair market offer on the tractor. If there is no lien then he can pay his father the value. I am not telling either of them to do anything that is immoral or illegal. The father is done financially. We do not have debtor prisons here. That is why we have bankruptcy laws. The father needs to settle the current issues the best he can. That is all he can do. Then he needs to start over again. IF he gets in good shape in the future he can always go back and settle the shortage if he wants too. The son would more than likely give the bank more than anyone else would for a Ford 9700 with a bad motor. Plus the bank would not have to pay to have it hauled somewhere to be sold. [Reply]  [No Email]
LAA 01-19-2013 18:51:02 86.51.147.113 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to JD Seller, 01-19-2013 10:38:19   JD Seller you are wrong Everytime someone defaults and fails to pay back a legitimate debt there is less money available in the community and eventually nationwide to loan for responsible people to expand their businesses and create jobs. In my opinion a person should make every effort clear his debts regardless if he is getting any current benefit from the loan proceeds or not. I have tractors from the 1970's and if I get in the predicment where I need to borrow money against them then what I really need to do is something different for a living. If the man mortgaged the tractor and did not pay the note and has no intention of paying the note then it belongs to the lien holder. Ethically speaking, no one other than the lien holders representative has any business touching that tractor except the person whose land it is parked on, its a simple matter to go to the bank and ask them what they intend to do with the tractor and pay for it if he wants the tractor. [Reply]  [No Email]
JD Seller 01-19-2013 19:35:08 208.126.196.144 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to LAA, 01-19-2013 18:51:02   LAA the tractor is HIS DAD's until the bank takes it back. All I am wanting to do is get the tractor back in the family's control. Then deal with the bank. As for the father declaring bankruptcy. In the long term he and the bank will be better off to solve the problem the best they can NOW, not drag it out for years and years. I was on a local banks loan board for many years. We had a guy that we had to foreclose on. HE mainly just hit a string of bad luck that put him under. HE refused to take bankruptcy. So he forced the bank to keep the loans open. He forfeited all the secured collateral plus sold everything else. There still is over $800,000 dollars left owed to the bank. This is the old principal amount and back interest. The loan's interest rate was a fixed rate loan from the early 1990s. It is locked in at 12%. So that is $96,000 dollars each year in interest only. HE will never be able to pay it off. Plus it is dragging him down from ever getting ahead. He pays maybe $4000-5000 on it each year out of his town job. Now the hard thing for many to understand. Since he is still making a small payment the bank can not write off the loan. So it show on their books. Every time they are audited by the FDIC they are questioned about this bad loan. It also messes up their foreclosure ratio at the FDIC. So the few dollars he sends them each year is actually costing the bank money. If they could write it off they could use that loss to off set some income for tax porpoises and then actually have more funds to re-loan. Also the money he borrowed/lost years ago did not just disappear. Those dollars went back into the economy. HE spent them buying things or services. So they are in circulation. As far as him mortgaging that old tractor. These days if you are borrowing general operating money you are going to sign a BLANKET mortgage on all of your personal real property and equipment. Even the 20 or fifty year old stuff. [Reply]  [No Email]
LAA 01-19-2013 22:56:35 86.51.147.113 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to JD Seller, 01-19-2013 19:35:08   JD Seller -- we have widely different beliefs on the whole process from start to finish, first and foremeost, in my world, there is no such thing as an ""operating"" loan, if I can"t afford to plant a crop or buy livestock I will do something different until I can pay the inputs out of pocket, especially after many years in the business. The only debt I will incur is a mortgage for more land, with ample money down so that the land stands the full nut with no additional collateral and the purchase has to make sense from a potential production standpoint, if it won"t pay itself out in a reasonable number of years then I don"t need or want it. Debt is the cause of most peoples troubles, not the cure. Both of my sons are building their respective operations under these same pricipals that have worked for my Father, Grandfather, Uncles, Brother, cousins and myself as far back as any of us can recall. [Reply]  [No Email]
MarkB_MI 01-19-2013 17:00:47 75.219.94.180 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to JD Seller, 01-19-2013 10:38:19   Dead on, JD. You advised Haley do what is legal and ethical, and you said his dad should take advantage of bankruptcy law same as millions of other people and corporations have done. There's no shame in that, and everyone deserves a second chance in life. [Reply]  [No Email]
LAA 01-19-2013 19:28:15 86.51.147.113 Report to Moderator	Re: What would you do? Opinions please in reply to MarkB_MI, 01-19-2013 17:00:47   Bankruptcy laws were originally intended to protect the ignorant and unsophisticated from being taken advantage of by predatory lenders. This has been extended by judicial fiat to include every person who decides not to pay for their house because it turns out to be not such a good deal to people who start ill advised businesses to people who just plain over extend without any intention of ever paying anything back. It is legal to do a lot of things that the doer would not want done onto himself. [Reply]  [No Email]