How do they know how much I have in my bank account, and how do they 'take' it?

[DopeyDwarf]

I posted a few days ago about my lawyer being very insistent that we have '0' in our bank accounts, or as close to it as possible. My kids bank account still have $25 in them, each, because my daughters pay is direct deposit through that credit union only, and you have to keep $25 to keep the account open. My husband will have $4.26 in his account on friday, and I will have around $11. My question is, do we do a printout of our accounts to give at the 341 meeting, or does the lawyer need this for the electronic filing? Do they 'seize' our accounts at the 341 to get this money, or do they just say 'you had a total amount of $65 in accounts, now give it to us'? How does this work? My lawyer is not very useful, as you can probably tell. Once again, we are in Kansas, and are allowed 0 cash on hand at filing, and no wild card. (whatever that means) I am seriously stressing out trying to spend this money down to the closest penny possible. The lawyer had us sign the petition on Monday, and I think it has to be filed by Monday. (We were asked to come in for a meeting, and the next thing we knew, our lawyer was about to submit the bk petition until we informed him that we still had over $800 in our accounts!!!) I really need some clarification on this, and my lawyer isn't providing it!!!

[JRScott]

Well as to how they know, you will turn in bank statements as part of the petition, or will have to submit them later.

It is possible that you have no wild card left, so the lawyer wants to make sure the minimum is in each account so it is not worth the Trustee's time.

How they take it is if they decide to it is a direct debit to the trustee just like you might use to pay insurance etc.

[DopeyDwarf]

I guess what it comes down to is do I have to do anything to give them the money if they want it? Like I said, it is getting kind of ridiculous whittling down my account , as I usually have a buffer of about $50 between my husband's checks. I don't want to go to jail or anything for $11 in my account!! They won't close my account, though, right?

[JRScott]

They won't close your account, well they shouldn't.

As far as I know you don't have to do anything. Though once the filing is complete I'd build a little buffer back up to keep from any overdrawn fees in case they do debit the accounts, but with such small amounts I doubt they bother.

[DopeyDwarf]

Thanks, I hope not, as I mentioned, my lawyer has me extremely stressed about this!!! We do not have overdraaft protection (because of our bad credit) and it is a $37.50 charge per overdrawn item per a day, which would basically put us further into debt if it happened.

[debtmonster]

I put money in our savings that I use to pay the IRS every quarter. Am I going to get into trouble for that? That's not my money. It belongs to the government. I get a 1099 and have to pay every 3 months. What do I do about that?

[ready2puke]

Debt, I would time your filing immeditately after you take that money out of your savings and get the reciept for the M.O.

[debtmonster]

Debt, I would time your filing immeditately after you take that money out of your savings and get the reciept for the M.O.

I just transfer the money back to my checking and then mail them a check. The next check is due in January. I am mega-thousands behind in my taxes since I have not been able to afford to put money away all year. Now I will owe most of this year, plus I'll be trying to pay next year's taxes. I will have to be homeless or rent-less for a long time just to catch up.