Let me start by saying that we are in Michigan. We have retained counsel. We are a family of four, including two children: six and two. I am comfortably employed, but my wife has been laid off for two years prior to our 341. She went back to school after a year of searching for work, and our pursuit of Bankruptcy relief is to help our family stabilize a bit in the wake of all these changes (the new addition to the family, my wife's unemployment, and her continued education to pursue employment later).
We had our 341 meeting in October, which was attended by an attorney for the Trustee. Naturally, that was unexpected. The 341 concluded with the representative of the Trustee asking for more documentation regarding our children's daycare expenses. He also had a bone to pick with the number of exemptions I claim on my W-4. Our attorney told us not to worry, and assured us that with some clarification there would be no further issues. She did warn us that this individual was new to the Trustee's office and was out to prove something. I'm not sure how true that is, nor what it was that caused him to either pull our case out of the stack randomly or notice some red flag that caused him concern.
Shortly afterward, we received a letter indicating that a motion to dismiss was granted by the judge and our lawyer responded. A hearing in front of the judge was subsequently scheduled, which we attended last week.
Prior to the hearing, we met with our attorney who indicated one of three results could come from the hearing: the judge could grant the discharge, he could dismiss our case, or we could move on to an evidentiary hearing. Our attorney indicated that an evidentiary hearing would not be desirable. Then, as we waited to enter the courtroom, the representative from the Trustee's office approached our attorney and said that he was just going to ask the judge for an evidentiary hearing. Sigh. He said he was still not convinced my W-4 withholding couldn't be adjusted (thereby reducing our tax refund at the end of the year and getting more in my check per week), and that he was perplexed by the number of times our daycare numbers have changed during the course of this process. In reality, my wife's school schedule changes frequently as semesters come and go which genuinely causes our daycare costs to fluxuate. I'm not sure what to do about my withholding, because I'm worried if I over-estimate the number of exemptions I'll end up owing at the end of the year and if I don't claim enough exemptions it won't make a difference. My entire life, I've left it at zero and just let things work themselves out at the end of the year fr better or worse.
So there is the big long story. I'm wondering what to expect from an evidentiary hearing. I'm going to ask my attorney the same question, but I'm afraid that we're going to get the standard "There's nothing to worry about" and "We have everything we need from you" responses we've received all along. Neither of these things have seemed to be true at any given time.
I will say, that our situation is complicated by the fact that I make a fairly comfortable living and I'm thankful for that. We pass the means test, but it's close. I have a feeling the Trustee's attorney is trying to push the numbers over the edge and break our means test. Will we be in trouble for a 'lack' of evidence at this hearing, or will we be OK? Just don't know what to expect here.
We had our 341 meeting in October, which was attended by an attorney for the Trustee. Naturally, that was unexpected. The 341 concluded with the representative of the Trustee asking for more documentation regarding our children's daycare expenses. He also had a bone to pick with the number of exemptions I claim on my W-4. Our attorney told us not to worry, and assured us that with some clarification there would be no further issues. She did warn us that this individual was new to the Trustee's office and was out to prove something. I'm not sure how true that is, nor what it was that caused him to either pull our case out of the stack randomly or notice some red flag that caused him concern.
Shortly afterward, we received a letter indicating that a motion to dismiss was granted by the judge and our lawyer responded. A hearing in front of the judge was subsequently scheduled, which we attended last week.
Prior to the hearing, we met with our attorney who indicated one of three results could come from the hearing: the judge could grant the discharge, he could dismiss our case, or we could move on to an evidentiary hearing. Our attorney indicated that an evidentiary hearing would not be desirable. Then, as we waited to enter the courtroom, the representative from the Trustee's office approached our attorney and said that he was just going to ask the judge for an evidentiary hearing. Sigh. He said he was still not convinced my W-4 withholding couldn't be adjusted (thereby reducing our tax refund at the end of the year and getting more in my check per week), and that he was perplexed by the number of times our daycare numbers have changed during the course of this process. In reality, my wife's school schedule changes frequently as semesters come and go which genuinely causes our daycare costs to fluxuate. I'm not sure what to do about my withholding, because I'm worried if I over-estimate the number of exemptions I'll end up owing at the end of the year and if I don't claim enough exemptions it won't make a difference. My entire life, I've left it at zero and just let things work themselves out at the end of the year fr better or worse.
So there is the big long story. I'm wondering what to expect from an evidentiary hearing. I'm going to ask my attorney the same question, but I'm afraid that we're going to get the standard "There's nothing to worry about" and "We have everything we need from you" responses we've received all along. Neither of these things have seemed to be true at any given time.
I will say, that our situation is complicated by the fact that I make a fairly comfortable living and I'm thankful for that. We pass the means test, but it's close. I have a feeling the Trustee's attorney is trying to push the numbers over the edge and break our means test. Will we be in trouble for a 'lack' of evidence at this hearing, or will we be OK? Just don't know what to expect here.
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