Bankruptcy

Debtors Should Never Communicate With Their Bankruptcy Trustee

By Jonathan Alper

A Chapter 7 trustee sent my paralegal an email requesting some additional financial information from one of my Chapter 7 clients. My paralegal forwarded the trustee?s request to the debtor by email and told the debtor to provide the answers to the trustee?s questions to our office so that we can respond to the trustee.. The debtor decided to expedite communications and provide the answers directly to the Chapter 7 trustee by email.

The next day the trustee calls my paralegal and acknowledges receipt of information from our debtor and expresses appreciation for the debtor quick response.. The Trustee also states that the debtor?s email message says that it was sent from his Blackberry. Problem is that the debtor did not list a Blackberry on his personal property list, and the debtor had used up his personal property exemption. The Trustee told my paralegal to please ask our debtor to turn over his Blackberry to the trustee.

If you file bankruptcy you should realize that your bankruptcy trustee is not your friend and that the trustee is not stupid. I?ve written in previous blog posts that no good can possibly come from a bankruptcy debtor communicating directly with a bankruptcy trustee. Your nice, friendly, and cooperative emails to your trustee will not make him like you. Learn from this client?s example.

Full post as published by Florida Bankruptcy Law on May 31, 2010 (boomark / email).