Had my 341 today. All the people before me went through relatively quickly. Mine got off to a bit of a rocky start.
A little background: I filed Pro Se, and I had my petition done by a document preparer. She took my paystubs and entered them into a system to figure out my monthly income. My income was much higher from January to April, so it skewed my Schedule J to show that I have about $800 net income after my expenses. The problem is, the expenses listed are my current ones, now that I'm not making that much money and I've cut way back(moved into a cheaper place, got rid of my motorcycle, etc). My doc prep told me that the trustee would be using the same system to determine my income, and I'd be able to explain my situation to him when it comes up.
So I showed up for the meeting today, and got sworn in. When he asked me if everything in my petition was accurate, I stated yes, with two exceptions:
#1, one of my listed exempt assets was listed as a 401K, and I felt it should specifically be listed as a State Retirement Account. He didn't seem to really care about that.
#2, my income is much lower than what's stated on the petition.
He told me that I signed my name to the petition, and if I knowingly submitted a false petition, I could go to prison for up to 5 years. I explained to him the situation surrounding my cut in income, and then he agreed that the way my doc prep determined my income based on YTD would be the same way he determined it. At that point I said, yes, everything in the petition is accurate then. He said he'd take a closer look at my last 6 months of paystubs to determine my current income, because based on the $800 net income listed in the petition, he would have had to make a determination as to whether I needed to file Chapter 13 instead, or forego bankruptcy altogether.
Overall, I think the meeting ended on a good note. Not the quick in-and-out I so often hear about, but I guess I'll see what happens.
A little background: I filed Pro Se, and I had my petition done by a document preparer. She took my paystubs and entered them into a system to figure out my monthly income. My income was much higher from January to April, so it skewed my Schedule J to show that I have about $800 net income after my expenses. The problem is, the expenses listed are my current ones, now that I'm not making that much money and I've cut way back(moved into a cheaper place, got rid of my motorcycle, etc). My doc prep told me that the trustee would be using the same system to determine my income, and I'd be able to explain my situation to him when it comes up.
So I showed up for the meeting today, and got sworn in. When he asked me if everything in my petition was accurate, I stated yes, with two exceptions:
#1, one of my listed exempt assets was listed as a 401K, and I felt it should specifically be listed as a State Retirement Account. He didn't seem to really care about that.
#2, my income is much lower than what's stated on the petition.
He told me that I signed my name to the petition, and if I knowingly submitted a false petition, I could go to prison for up to 5 years. I explained to him the situation surrounding my cut in income, and then he agreed that the way my doc prep determined my income based on YTD would be the same way he determined it. At that point I said, yes, everything in the petition is accurate then. He said he'd take a closer look at my last 6 months of paystubs to determine my current income, because based on the $800 net income listed in the petition, he would have had to make a determination as to whether I needed to file Chapter 13 instead, or forego bankruptcy altogether.
Overall, I think the meeting ended on a good note. Not the quick in-and-out I so often hear about, but I guess I'll see what happens.
Bankruptcy Wizard
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