After my lawyer contacted the trustee regarding the never before talked about 2007 return. Luckily, the trustee stated that was a mistake, we only need to give the 2008 refund (If Any!)
Somehow, the trustee still states my wife is $100 over her exemptions, and wants us to pay for them. OK, OK! We’ll pay the $100 for jeans and T-Shirts… let’s get on with it please!
I can NOT believe this! After having agreed on everything and everyone agreed on the outcome, we get the actual written stipulation agreement. NOW, she claims we need to give her our 2007 tax refund which was received in 2008, as well as our 2008 refund, we will get later this year. At no point at any time have the 2007 refund been mentioned! She even asked us at our 341 in November if we had gotten the refund… which we had and already spent on day to day expenses prior to filing our case!
I urgently called my lawyer, and let him know we have a problem. He said he’s not suprised she tried to sneak something in at the end. He assumes he will now have to attend the hearing the end of the week, that had been scheduled from one of her previous disptes. I can’t believe this! Ugh!
He will contact her, and try to determine if this is incorrect, or if she really is trying to claim the refund. I hope I hear something quick. I’m gonna have a frickin’ stroke.
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.
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.
Today is day 60 after our 341 meeting of creditors. For the majority of chapter 7 personal bankruptcy cases… day 60 is the magic day. The day of discharge when you are no longer liable for your debts. Many districts around the country discharge almost automatically on day 60, and the case is closed shortly thereafter.
In our case, since we are now considered an asset case closing will not take case until the assets are sold, and the trustee distributes all the funds to creditors. However, our bankrutcy discharge can take place at any time.
We are hoping this will happen after the objections are settled and items to be surrendered are agreed upon. We’ll keep you up to date!