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Son's Personal Injury Settlement and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, in Ohio

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  • 09-15-2007, 09:22 AM
    motherof3
    Son's Personal Injury Settlement and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, in Ohio
    My husband and I recently filed a chapter 13 on June 25,'07. We attended our meeting of creditors and our confirmation court date was yesterday. We also have received an approval from the trustee for the court to confirm our plan and our payments are all up to date. But, now we are in a bind and need some advice. 3 days before we filed my 11 year old son was attacked by a neighbors dog and ended up in the emergency room for treatment of several bites. The neighbors homeowners insurance company offered my son a personal injury settlement of $5000 plus reimbursement of medical costs which totalled another $1650. As his guardians we agreed to the settlement offer. However, when they sent his check, they made it out to my husband and I "on behalf of our minor son" in the amount of $6650. This was due to the fact that they stated they could not make the check out to him because he is a minor. We have tried for 2 weeks to get an answer from the court trustee and our attorney and nobody will help us. They keep telling us they don't know yet whether we can give our son this money without the trustee trying to take it or getting our bankruptcy dismissed and ending up losing our home.
    My son deserves to have this money for what he went through. We are not the type of people to take this from our own child. The money is going into an account for him to use in a few years for a car, college, or whatever he needs it for.
    Can anyone out there please tell me if we cash this check, can the trustee legally take this money from our child? Can they dismiss our chapter 13 causing us to lose our home because somebody else was too careless in keeping their dog confined and my son got injured because of it? Please help if you can. Any advice is much appreciated.
  • 09-16-2007, 08:07 AM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Son's Personal Injury Settlement and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, in Ohio
    You may be able to set up a trust fund or conservatorship for your son, and have the money payable to you as conservator. That is commonly done in most (probably all) states with larger settlements to minors, although the cost and burden is such that small settlements are often simply distributed to the parent. The check could then be reissued to you in your capacity as trustee or conservator, and deposited into a special account. Unfortunately I can't guide you through Ohio's procedures for this, but your lawyer may be able to do so.
  • 09-17-2007, 10:32 AM
    motherof3
    Re: Son's Personal Injury Settlement and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, in Ohio
    Thanks so much for your quick reply Mr. Knowitall. I was planning on opening a CD through the bank in his name, payable to him when he's 16, but unfortunately I'm not able to do that or open a trust fund because I can't even cash it at this point due to it being made out in our name. If I do and the court trustee wants to be nasty about it, then they will dismiss our chapter 13 and then we're in a whole new world of trouble financially. I'm in the process of trying to get a hold of the insurance company that paid the personal injury claim to see if there's any way they can stop payment and make a new check payable to a different adult family member in order to keep our names unattached to it. Hopefully we can get this worked out. Still no answer from our attorney either. He was supposed to let us know Friday but when my husband contacted him, he conveniently had forgotten all about it. If any other suggestions please let me know. Thanks again!!!
  • 09-17-2007, 10:50 AM
    aaron
    Re: Son's Personal Injury Settlement and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, in Ohio
    If you take the appropriate preliminary steps, you may be able to get the insurance company to reissue the check to the trust, or whatever other entity you set up with the advice of your lawyers.
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