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IS THE BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEE GONNA COME OUT TO MY HOUSE AND SEE WHAT I GOT? BANKRUPTCY FAQS

By Joseph McDaniel, Esq.

Probably not. Hasn't happened in any of my cases in thirty years.

One time a bankruptcy trustee told me that he was going to go to a debtor's house to check up on the stuff she had. He wanted to know what the hand-made paper costumes looked like.

She was a wedding planner, and she and her mom and kids had constructed some sorts of costumes out of crepe-paper or some such thing. I never saw them.

That Arizona Bankruptcy Trustee wound up being too busy to actually carry through, although we would have been happy to schedule a viewing of the homemade, crepe-paper wedding costumes.

But trust me. If a trustee has reason to believe that you've lied like a Chihuahua on your schedules, you are at risk for a visit from your Phoenix Bankruptcy Trustee, and for a Complaint to Set Aside Discharge, and maybe some snug, cute striped jammies for use inside a wonderful place where they feed you green bologna every day!

I fire clients every now and then; not often at all, but it happens.

One reason I'll refuse to take a bankruptcy case or fire the bankruptcy client is my strong suspicion that the debtor refuses to list his stuff. It may be sports memorabilia; it may be a Harley-Davidson. It might be a wedding ring.

Whatever it is, if I have reason to believe that the debtor is not playing fair, I'll talk to 'em about it, and if I don't like the answers, I'll give 'em a refund and send them to some other law firm that I don't like very much. And you know the ones; they advertise a lot on television.

I personally know of two cases where a bankruptcy debtor in Arizona got a visit from a bankruptcy case administrator, or a bankruptcy trustee, or both.

Not my clients, just so you know.

In one case, the debtor had taken a cardboard box full of dental tools next door and handed it to his neighbor and said something like, "please hold onto this to help me commit bankruptcy fraud, okay?" The neighbor said, "Sure!" and immediately called the Bankruptcy Court to blow the whistle on this jerk.

Remember that honesty is the best policy, and that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead.

In another bankruptcy case of note, there were dead and dying horses in the backyard.

Now, I don't know what news agency got on the back of the Bankruptcy Court in that case, but I guarantee you that if you have a horse and you file a bankruptcy in Arizona, that had better be one happy, frisky horse, because they care about that at the Bankruptcy Court!

You may be less-than-frisky, but that had better be one happy, happy horse!


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Full post as published by Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney Blog on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).