Brookfield Bankruptcy Lawyer Explains The Bankruptcy Court Date

The trustee is going to ask a series of questions to the debtor under oath.  He may ask if they can sue anybody for personal injury or workers’ compensation, whether they expect to inherit any money in the next six months or not, and whether they’ve been truthful in all of the phases of the bankruptcy petition.  And again, as an attorney, if you advise the client properly and let them know what’s coming, this isn’t a big interrogation, per se.  It’s more a routine yes/no type of deal, and in 99 percent of the cases, when you have an honest debtor as a client, the meeting goes off without a hitch.  Where you have a problem is if your client has failed to tell you certain things.  For example, they might tell you that they have a piece of land, vacant land in Wisconsin that has a value of $30,000.00.  They didn’t think they had to tell you because it was in Wisconsin. 

Or there might be a vehicle that’s paid in full that they didn’t tell you about, and it just might happen to be a 1980 Corvette or maybe a Harley-Davidson which is paid in full, and the justification there is they didn’t think they had to tell us because it was paid in full.  This is obviously not true.  As attorneys, we always ask all of their property, whether it’s paid for or not, but sometimes debtors don’t tell the truth, and then when they finally get in front of the trustee and they’re sworn in and they’re under oath, well, then they don’t want to lie.  So every once in a while, there’s going to be an issue where an asset pops up, but for 99 percent of the cases, they go off without a hitch in a Chapter 7, the meeting with the trustee is not a huge deal, it’s not an interrogation, they answer the questions yes/no, and usually the trustee will end the meeting with a finding of no assets, which means there’s nothing to administer and sell and pay pro rata to the creditors. 

Also see Brookfield Bankruptcy Lawyer or call (847) 520-8100.