Attorney Keith Hagan and I have been defending dealers from suits by Nextgear for over two years. Nextgear has been filing about 1,000 suits per year in Hamilton County, Indiana, and that’s in good economic times.  Automotive Finance Corporation (AFC) has been filing quite a few less than Nextgear in Marion County, Indiana.

We have generally been successful in cutting deals with Nextgear when our clients have enough assets or cash flow to make a serious offer.  AFC has been a tougher nut, but we have completed deals with them too. 

With the COVID-19 shutdowns, we are living in a different world now, but I’m not sure Nextgear has gotten the Memo. Nextgear is continuing to file lawsuits as if everything is normal.  Everything is not normal.  Independent dealers are looking at 3 months or more with virtually no revenue. Even thoughs who have left the business and are trying to make a new life find that bringing home a living income will be tough. 

I predict that the vast majority of the dealers and guarantors that Nextgear sues over the next 6 months, will ultimately just file bankruptcy.  We will still take cases from dealers who want our services (and we lowered our fees), but I will urge them not to settle if it means taking food off their table. 

If Nextgear wants to keep its customer base, it should suspend floorplan fees and curtailment requirements immediately. Otherwise, instead of 1,000 dealers to sue next year, they will have at least 10,000, or half their customers. 

If there is any good news for the folks who are sued by Nextgear, if after they get a judgment against you you eventually pick yourself up and turn around your financial life and start making a good income, it is possible to negotiate with Nextgear to get a discount on the judgment owed. We can help you with this.  As part of the deal, we can negotiate issues relating to the KO book.

I will update this post later, but I wanted to get something down to let people know that if they feel trapped by their floorplan lender, in the wake of the corona virus crisis, they aren’t alone, and the system will have to adapt to make it possible to move forward.