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featherynscaleYesterday, I had my court-appointed meeting with the Federal Bankruptcy Trustee. Or rather, I didn't, really.
I received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago, instructing me that I was to appear before a Federal Trustee yesterday at 3:00, and that I was to send said trustee a fat sheaf of documents in advance of my appearance, that she may review them and find things to pick at, take over, and generally be adversarial about. And so, accordingly, I sent tax returns, copies of pay stubs, and (this was the fun one) "a detailed accounting" of how I spent my most recent tax refund. The last item was the fun one since a large portion of my refund went to filing and legal fees for the bankruptcy.
I was also advised to send bank statements for all of my accounts. This, I did not do in advance, but put together somewhat hurriedly on the day before yesterday. The idea here is that the amount showing on your statement is supposed to correspond to the numbers you claimed as assets in your case filing. Unfortunately, for me, this was not the case. My records (which is to say the register on my checkbook) showed about $130 in my checking account on the day I filed. The bank's records show a number significantly higher than that. For one thing, the check for the legal and filing fees hadn't cleared, which was a goodly chunk, and for another, my bank has had a consistent hallucination over the last three or four years that I have about $300 more in my account than I actually do. I don't know why. I have talked to them about this, and they insist that it is real. Again, I don't know why. I assume that some day they will realize the error and pull it, so I treat it like it isn't there against that occasion. (Alternately, it's possible that I will one day close the account and have a bonus $300 in my hand, which is okay too.) But I'm trying to think of what I'm going to say about this when I'm sworn in that won't sound like I'm lying.
As it turns out, though, I needn't have worried. I showed up earlier than my appointed time, having given myself more drive time (read: get lost in downtown and wander around aimlessly time) than I needed. So I waited. The court shows you an instructional video about the bankruptcy process while you wait for your meeting. It's about 20 minutes long. I got to see it about two and a half times. Still, I suppose it's better than sitting in a grey featureless room with 20 other nervous and ill-informed people (which I was) and nothing to look at. Finally, my lawyer showed up, said he thought my stuff was all in order and he didn't have any questions, and we went into the meeting room. As it turns out, my lawyer was also representing three other people in the same group, which is efficient and all that, but meant that I didn't have a chance to talk much to him.
There were about 20 people in my group -- I had sort of assumed that they would call everybody into a small room one at a time, but no. They herd you into a large room with a desk at one end. They then collect identification from everybody and record who's there. Then, they ask if there are any creditors present (in my group, there was one, and the lady that she was there to talk to hadn't shown up). Then, they swear everybody in, and ask all kinds of questions to the whole group. These are things like "Does anybody need to make any changes to their original filing?" and "Has anybody not filed their 2004 tax return?".
One was "Has anyone been divorced in the last five years?", at which a small, mousy-looking lady raised her hand. They asked her some individual questions. Then they said again "Has anyone else been divorced in the last five years?" The same woman raised her hand again. The Trustee looked at her sort of blankly. She said "I had another one." The Trustee was like "Two? Since 2000?" And the lady says "Yeah", so they have to go through the whole thing again.
After this, we arrived at the point that the previous group had been at when I walked into the room. The Trustee calls each person and zir attorney up to the desk and grills them about their paperwork. I'd gotten to see a couple of these that were on the end of the last group which were fun. One guy was the CEO of a company -- he had claimed some of the company's inventory as his property, and they had to go over all of that. Another guy, who had to have been retired, had a ton of undeveloped property that was tied up in some other court proceeding. He told the Trustee that she was welcome to sell it off to pay his creditors if she could, since he'd been trying to do that for several years now.
It seemed like this was proceeding in alphabetical order, so I was a little surprised that they called my name first. I was standing up to take my packet of papers up to the front of the room, and the Trustee says "I've got all of your papers that I need, and I don't have any questions. All of your property exemptions are approved, you're free to go." STAMP. So they didn't even look at anything I brought, and I went home.
So in theory, in 60 days my case will be closed, and I don't have to go before the judge unless somebody contests the filing. My lawyer tells me that the person that most often contests is the Trustee, so I think I'm probably done with the participatory aspect of this experience, and should just wait for my discharge of debt to come in the mail. :)
I received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago, instructing me that I was to appear before a Federal Trustee yesterday at 3:00, and that I was to send said trustee a fat sheaf of documents in advance of my appearance, that she may review them and find things to pick at, take over, and generally be adversarial about. And so, accordingly, I sent tax returns, copies of pay stubs, and (this was the fun one) "a detailed accounting" of how I spent my most recent tax refund. The last item was the fun one since a large portion of my refund went to filing and legal fees for the bankruptcy.
I was also advised to send bank statements for all of my accounts. This, I did not do in advance, but put together somewhat hurriedly on the day before yesterday. The idea here is that the amount showing on your statement is supposed to correspond to the numbers you claimed as assets in your case filing. Unfortunately, for me, this was not the case. My records (which is to say the register on my checkbook) showed about $130 in my checking account on the day I filed. The bank's records show a number significantly higher than that. For one thing, the check for the legal and filing fees hadn't cleared, which was a goodly chunk, and for another, my bank has had a consistent hallucination over the last three or four years that I have about $300 more in my account than I actually do. I don't know why. I have talked to them about this, and they insist that it is real. Again, I don't know why. I assume that some day they will realize the error and pull it, so I treat it like it isn't there against that occasion. (Alternately, it's possible that I will one day close the account and have a bonus $300 in my hand, which is okay too.) But I'm trying to think of what I'm going to say about this when I'm sworn in that won't sound like I'm lying.
As it turns out, though, I needn't have worried. I showed up earlier than my appointed time, having given myself more drive time (read: get lost in downtown and wander around aimlessly time) than I needed. So I waited. The court shows you an instructional video about the bankruptcy process while you wait for your meeting. It's about 20 minutes long. I got to see it about two and a half times. Still, I suppose it's better than sitting in a grey featureless room with 20 other nervous and ill-informed people (which I was) and nothing to look at. Finally, my lawyer showed up, said he thought my stuff was all in order and he didn't have any questions, and we went into the meeting room. As it turns out, my lawyer was also representing three other people in the same group, which is efficient and all that, but meant that I didn't have a chance to talk much to him.
There were about 20 people in my group -- I had sort of assumed that they would call everybody into a small room one at a time, but no. They herd you into a large room with a desk at one end. They then collect identification from everybody and record who's there. Then, they ask if there are any creditors present (in my group, there was one, and the lady that she was there to talk to hadn't shown up). Then, they swear everybody in, and ask all kinds of questions to the whole group. These are things like "Does anybody need to make any changes to their original filing?" and "Has anybody not filed their 2004 tax return?".
One was "Has anyone been divorced in the last five years?", at which a small, mousy-looking lady raised her hand. They asked her some individual questions. Then they said again "Has anyone else been divorced in the last five years?" The same woman raised her hand again. The Trustee looked at her sort of blankly. She said "I had another one." The Trustee was like "Two? Since 2000?" And the lady says "Yeah", so they have to go through the whole thing again.
After this, we arrived at the point that the previous group had been at when I walked into the room. The Trustee calls each person and zir attorney up to the desk and grills them about their paperwork. I'd gotten to see a couple of these that were on the end of the last group which were fun. One guy was the CEO of a company -- he had claimed some of the company's inventory as his property, and they had to go over all of that. Another guy, who had to have been retired, had a ton of undeveloped property that was tied up in some other court proceeding. He told the Trustee that she was welcome to sell it off to pay his creditors if she could, since he'd been trying to do that for several years now.
It seemed like this was proceeding in alphabetical order, so I was a little surprised that they called my name first. I was standing up to take my packet of papers up to the front of the room, and the Trustee says "I've got all of your papers that I need, and I don't have any questions. All of your property exemptions are approved, you're free to go." STAMP. So they didn't even look at anything I brought, and I went home.
So in theory, in 60 days my case will be closed, and I don't have to go before the judge unless somebody contests the filing. My lawyer tells me that the person that most often contests is the Trustee, so I think I'm probably done with the participatory aspect of this experience, and should just wait for my discharge of debt to come in the mail. :)
