I had my 341 last week in Woodland Hills, CA and it went FINE. Yay! Before I went I looked on here to see if anyone had a description and didn’t find one, so I figured I should describe it for the someone else that might be looking.
The location is in a normal office building/business park type area. Don’t worry about parking, there’s a big free lot right by the door. When you go in there’s a sign directing you to the meeting room. And there are bathrooms on the way to the room. Everything is easy and clear as to where to go.
The room has a waiting room type room and then the big meeting room. On the bulletin board in the waiting room, you can see the order. You can go in early and watch the session before yours. I got there about a half hour early and then the previous session went over, so I ended up watching other people for over an hour. Good, but BRUTAL. The wait was the worst part. I did get to see that the trustee asks the same questions of everyone though, so it was nice to practice in my head while other went up.
The trustee will make sure you know what order he’ll see you in. The person on deck goes up and sits in the chairs near his table. It’s a big long table at the front with the trustee and another guy then your lawyer on one end and you at the opposite end. They talk to you and the lawyer just comes in if there is a question or a problem that they can help with.
The trustee on the day I was there was David Hagen. He seemed fair, but very detailed and called a lot of people out on inaccuracies and unclear things on their forms. I’d say, have your shit together if you have him. Lots of these people were just unprepared and had clearly left things off on purpose. I couldn’t believe it. He found SO MANY people lying on their forms. Really blatant stuff like one woman saying that she was separated, but he asked her if her husband lived at the same address and he did, and they shared the rent, car and other expenses. Then another guy saying he was single, but he was really married. Another guy forgot to mention a property his wife owns in vegas. Another guy said claimed he owned no clothes or personal belongings. If the person was self employed or had questionable business $$ issues, he got right into it with them and was very detailed about their earnings. There were A LOT of cases continued due to missing or incorrect info. The scary thing is that most of these people had lawyers. There was a lawyer there that represented a lot of these people and he didn’t seem to know their info at all and wasn’t all that helpful. Apparently this is a lawyer that other lawyers hire to represent their clients at the 341 when they can’t make it. Don’t pick a lawyer that does this. I swear, I was one of the only ones there with a competent lawyer. She prepped me on exactly how to answer a ton of questions that might be asked. None of which were since our documents were meticulously prepared, but it was nice to feel like I knew what I was talking about.
If I remember correctly, here’s what he asked every person:
1. State name & address
2. A question about telling the truth on the forms
3. Did you read the green pamphlet?
4. Have you sold anything in the past 6 years? (I had to tell him about a real estate sale & stock sale) –He then asked if I got any $$ from either.
5. Do you own anything anywhere in the world that you didn’t include?
6. Does anyone owe you money?
7. Have you ever filed bankruptcy before?
Then he would either end the session (which was the case for me, phew!) or go into additional specific questions about your situation. MOST people had to answer additional questions. So I waited maybe an hour and a half, but my part was only maybe one minute at the most. I was SO relieved that mine was one of the easy quick ones. I attribute this to being ultra prepared through reading this site and having a great lawyer.
And that was it! Relief!!
Thank you to everyone on here, it really helped make all of this easier.
The location is in a normal office building/business park type area. Don’t worry about parking, there’s a big free lot right by the door. When you go in there’s a sign directing you to the meeting room. And there are bathrooms on the way to the room. Everything is easy and clear as to where to go.
The room has a waiting room type room and then the big meeting room. On the bulletin board in the waiting room, you can see the order. You can go in early and watch the session before yours. I got there about a half hour early and then the previous session went over, so I ended up watching other people for over an hour. Good, but BRUTAL. The wait was the worst part. I did get to see that the trustee asks the same questions of everyone though, so it was nice to practice in my head while other went up.
The trustee will make sure you know what order he’ll see you in. The person on deck goes up and sits in the chairs near his table. It’s a big long table at the front with the trustee and another guy then your lawyer on one end and you at the opposite end. They talk to you and the lawyer just comes in if there is a question or a problem that they can help with.
The trustee on the day I was there was David Hagen. He seemed fair, but very detailed and called a lot of people out on inaccuracies and unclear things on their forms. I’d say, have your shit together if you have him. Lots of these people were just unprepared and had clearly left things off on purpose. I couldn’t believe it. He found SO MANY people lying on their forms. Really blatant stuff like one woman saying that she was separated, but he asked her if her husband lived at the same address and he did, and they shared the rent, car and other expenses. Then another guy saying he was single, but he was really married. Another guy forgot to mention a property his wife owns in vegas. Another guy said claimed he owned no clothes or personal belongings. If the person was self employed or had questionable business $$ issues, he got right into it with them and was very detailed about their earnings. There were A LOT of cases continued due to missing or incorrect info. The scary thing is that most of these people had lawyers. There was a lawyer there that represented a lot of these people and he didn’t seem to know their info at all and wasn’t all that helpful. Apparently this is a lawyer that other lawyers hire to represent their clients at the 341 when they can’t make it. Don’t pick a lawyer that does this. I swear, I was one of the only ones there with a competent lawyer. She prepped me on exactly how to answer a ton of questions that might be asked. None of which were since our documents were meticulously prepared, but it was nice to feel like I knew what I was talking about.
If I remember correctly, here’s what he asked every person:
1. State name & address
2. A question about telling the truth on the forms
3. Did you read the green pamphlet?
4. Have you sold anything in the past 6 years? (I had to tell him about a real estate sale & stock sale) –He then asked if I got any $$ from either.
5. Do you own anything anywhere in the world that you didn’t include?
6. Does anyone owe you money?
7. Have you ever filed bankruptcy before?
Then he would either end the session (which was the case for me, phew!) or go into additional specific questions about your situation. MOST people had to answer additional questions. So I waited maybe an hour and a half, but my part was only maybe one minute at the most. I was SO relieved that mine was one of the easy quick ones. I attribute this to being ultra prepared through reading this site and having a great lawyer.
And that was it! Relief!!
Thank you to everyone on here, it really helped make all of this easier.
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