Archive for January, 2009

Updated exemptions to attorney for submission

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Last night and today I went over the overage worksheet supplied by the trustee and the appraisal we had previously received. We went over all the personal property from the appraisal, as well as the overage worksheet. I created a new spreadsheet for my lawyer with a general sheet of exemptions that matched the trustees values, and a second one with all the persoanl property.

He combined them into one for his use to use on the new schedule he has to file, and e-mailed it over. We only had to make a minor correction. He will now use this to fill out the updated schedule. Oh YEA! I forgot to mention, the trustee had mentioned she is not interested in the business assets, as they are not part of the persoanl property of the bankruptcy. EXCEPT, there is a $4200 deposit she had included on the worksheet, that was actually a business asset/expense. So hopefully she will drop that item and all will go smoothly.

If she claims we need to include that, I’ll be screwed! In that case, we will surrender virtually ALL our persoanal property, except for clothes and a couple household items. Lets hope it goes our way. I can’t imaging she will dispute a fourth time. But we’ll keep the blog updated to the progress.

Bankruptcy Assets overage worksheet from Trustee

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Today my lawyer forwarded over a worksheet from the trustee showing what she calculated as the “overages” of the bankruptcy estate. This is the amount of property that is over and above what we are allowed to claim as exempt.

As you remember from some of my other posts, she way over valued our cars which accounts for some of the so-called overage. And then the private stock which she discovered from our income taxes, that we didn’t actually know the value of. You can read about some of that mess here.

During our 341 meeting she stated she thought our appliances were over valued as well as much of our personal property in addition to the cars. After the appraisal came in, guess what? It was about what we had claimed on our petition, and in many cases much less. (i.e. the appliances she stated were over valued on the petition… came in at $450 less than we had stated!

We now have to file a 3rd amended schedule of exemptions. As she has disputed all of them. She has also scheduled a hearing the end of February to go over this info. I’m not sure if the hearing will still be needed if she accepts this new schedule or not.

chapter 7 Bankruptcy discharge and jump in credit scores

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Just two days after we received notification that our chapter 7 bankruptcy chscharge went through our scores both jumped afer no activity for a few weeks. Over two months in my case!

My credit score went increased from a 542 up to a 635. My wifes went raised up from a 580 to a 647. Not bad for just a couple days after the paperwork went through. These must have been electronic notifications. Hopefully others will get changes, and cause the credit scores to go up even further.

In a few weeks though we will have the task of going through the credit reports, and making sure information is correct, everything shows as IIB (Included in Bankruptcy) and there is no incorrect info. I’m sure there will be dicrepencies that will need to be corrected.

Here are links to Equifax which I’ve been using for several years to monitor our credit reports and scores:

Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1
Equifax Score Watch
Equifax Score Power

We got our chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge today

Monday, January 26th, 2009

We can’t believe it! While logging into PACER tonight to see if there was any info concerning the hearing the trustee wanted scheduled for our asset “overage” I saw the Order of Discharge!

That means we are no longer responsible for any debts. Today is the day we can start to clean up our credit reports, and hopefully get our credit scores going upward. This lets us actually have a sigh of relief.

We are really starting over with nothing, having to give up our cars, our home, and some of our possessions, too. They call it a fresh start… it’s gonna be tough, but we will get through it.

Now it’s time to save as much as we can for relocation to the chicago area.

Trustee requested bank statements again

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

Last Monday I got a forwarded letter from my lawyer that he had received from the trustee. She is apparently trying to determine the amount of overage we have over the allowed exemptions. From the letter I noticed she had a cash amount which came from our bank statements, as well as the stock, cars, etc. that she had a value on as well. She stated she need copies of bank statemnets for one of the accounts. She already has these! it was a brand new account started two days prior to our bankruptcy with all of $10 in the account. We had 10 days to respond.

I sent my lawyer a letter with some discrepancies from the property appraisal (Duplications of items), as well as information concerning the bank accounts. She had also mis-calculated the amout of cash by almost $900. This was due to a auto-debit that should not have gone through, and the bank paid it anyway making an overdraft of almost $900 which was included in the bankruptcy petition. The trustee had ADDED the negative amount into the available cash.

My lawyer must have liked my response, as he asked me to reword it somewhat so he could forward it along to the trustee. Well, I’m not sure if he did, or she responded back, or what. But last night I received a letter from him to the trustee that was very forward and blunt stating pretty much everything I had said in mine… but in a very formal tone. And with the copies of the statements I had already supplied.

So, we will see what happens from here.