Does this have to be reported?

[freshstart32]

Last year while we were having some trouble paying some bills my sister in law took some money off of her credit card and gave it to us to help us out. It was on more than one occassion and we have been paying back about $380 a month for about 9 months now. Our last payment is this month. I didn't put it on anything or say anything about it because it is her card and it's in her name and we just would pay the credit card company directly online. So my question is this.....does that have to be reported since the card is not in our name and since we are making the last payment on it this month? Will they look back on our statements and see it and question it? Is there something we should do now to explain in order to prevent problems once we get this filed?

[danaf]

hmmm, I would think you'd have to account where all your money has been going to.....

[CATCHMEIFYOUCAN]

Its considered paying an outside "lender," (family/friend). Could be considered preferential payments, however thats usually more than $600. Basically the money is gone! But if they question it, it would be a good idea to explain it. Dont forward any information, kind of they don't ask, you don't tell. They ask, you be as truthful as you can. And they usually ask, do you owe money to anyone (typically a family member or a friend). When the trustee had my bank statements, I notice he circled a big amount (like $700 something dollars). I didn't ask, and he didn't ask about it either (but at the same time it was quiet obvious what the withdrawal was for and particularly where I withdrew it from - THE CASINO!)

Best to you, Catchmeifyoucan

[B12]

Catch?

How many months of bank statements did your trustee have?

Anyone ever have the trustee ask for more than 6 months, especially any self employed people with a small MA PA business?

[demismom]

We have a small ma pa Antiques Business and we haven't been asked for anymore than 3 months back on our bank statements.

[B12]

Good to hear demi, thanks. My small business of 5 years is finally making enough money to pay the overhead and my personal bills. But....not before it put me in severe credit card debt. I look back at my possibly unwise decision to keep it open as long as I did. I have liquidated every asset I had including the equity in my house to keep paying the bills. I can no longer keep up. I am moving forward though, cause that was yesterday and as they say, yesterday's gone.

This forum has done much to assuage my fear. Education is truly powerful and this place does a phenomenal job of educating us.

I am moving forward with no trepidation whatsoever.
Thank you all.

[Bandit]

Last year while we were having some trouble paying some bills my sister in law took some money off of her credit card and gave it to us to help us out. It was on more than one occassion and we have been paying back about $380 a month for about 9 months now. Our last payment is this month. I didn't put it on anything or say anything about it because it is her card and it's in her name and we just would pay the credit card company directly online. So my question is this.....does that have to be reported since the card is not in our name and since we are making the last payment on it this month? Will they look back on our statements and see it and question it? Is there something we should do now to explain in order to prevent problems once we get this filed?

I wonder about all this. People do this often to help family out. If it were me looking at that I would just want to know why you were paying off someone elses bill and not your own. Then you would go into explaining what happened.

As for how that will look in BK, I would like to know. I doubt anyone has all the answers for everything we get into.

I wonder why they need to see bank statements. Can't they just access our accounts and see what was going on? I mean this is the Federal Government and they do pretty much whatever they want to do. Or is there some kind of supposed privacy and they want us to volunteer the statements?

[CATCHMEIFYOUCAN]

I don't think your checking account let alone a saving account gets reported on a credit report unless you like bounced a check or something (I dunno). But I guess the Trustee is just seeing if you may be trying to hide money, or uses it to figure out what your spending your money on etc.

Best of Luck, Catchmeifyoucan

In this day and age nothing seems to be private anymore.