Prospect Heights Bankruptcy Attorney On Listing All Of Your Personal...

According to Prospect Heights bankruptcy attorney, you basically have to generalize the particular property that you have.  Most states allow for a significant exemption in personal property.  In the state of Illinois, you can protect up to $4000 worth of miscellaneous personal property as well as all of your necessary clothing and all of your retirement, as long as it is ERISA qualified.  A Chapter 7 trustee does not want to come to your house, look through your belongings and see what the value of everything is.  In most cases, the trustee is satisfied to know that you have a TV, miscellaneous furniture and some minor clothing and some minor household goods.  In most cases, those items are not going to exceed $4000 in the aggregate.  The exception would be if you had a Steinway grand piano that was worth $25,000 or some kind of heirloom or piece of jewelry that was worth $10,000-$15,000 or a painting that might be worth $5000-$10,000. 

Most debtors do not have these significant items in their house or they would have liquidated them prior to filing for bankruptcy.  Again, the state of Illinois allows you to keep a certain amount of property free and clear from the trustee so don’t worry, you can feel comfortable knowing that minor household goods and normal clothing is not going to be taken and the trustee is not going to make an appointment and knock on your door and come through your house and do an inventory. 

You do want to be honest, though, with your attorney.  If you do have an asset, you want to let your attorney know.  On occasion, I have had clients who did not tell me about either a vehicle that was paid in full or a piece of vacant land in another state because they didn’t think they needed to tell me about it for whatever reason.  I always advise my clients you must list all the property you have and all the debts that you have.  Let me as your bankruptcy attorney make the determination on whether or not Chapter 7 is going to be a good idea for you or whether or not we need to consider Chapter 13 which is a repayment plan of either all or a portion of your debt. 

So you do not have to painstakingly itemize all of your personal property but just take a general inventory of what you have, look around your house and put approximate garage sale value on those items.  Again, in most Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases, this is not even an issue and a Chapter 7 trustee is not interested in coming and taking and seeing your personal property.