Question about the 341 meeting

[vleisme]

We just received our notice for the 341 meeting and they have a list of things they need at the meeting and one of them is proof that all tax returns for the four year period prior to filing the petition have been filed. Does anyone know exactly what they are asking for as proof?

[woeisme]

My 341 meeting was today, so glad to have yet another hurdle over with!!!

My lawyer had me give her copies of the past 2 years tax returns. Those were filed with the court. At the 341 they saw that we had the last 2 years worth on file, asked if we had filed all appropriate federal, state, and local taxes for the past 4 years, we answered yes, and that was it!

Now I think my district was very easy in the 341, we sat for about half an hour before our case # was called and they didn't give anyone a hard time at all, seemed like everyone there was just flying through the meeting with no problems, or very minor problems. (In our case they asked our lawyer to fix something on one of the lines of one of the schedules, but said it wouldn't affect any of the other calculations, and asked that they file a copy of the house appraisal, which I happened to have with me, but that was it, and said they determined us to be insolvent, which is a good think in CH 13, believe it or not, and that as long as my lawyer made the correction to the form, turned in a copy of the appraisal, and submitted the form for payroll deduction, that they saw no problem with our case getting confirmed.)

Anyhow, just bring copies of your past 4 years worth of tax forms, which might even be overkill since in our case they only required 2 years and took our word that we filed the other two. But having all 4 years worth of copies can't hurt, and you'll feel prepared for everything and anything that way!

Good luck! I was so worried about the 341. We had pretty high numbers for medical expenses (husband has chronic condition that requires lots of treatments beyond what insurance pays) and higher than average gas allowance (although soon everyone's gas expenses will be rising!) so I was concerned the trustee might object. Of course this could still happen at the confirmation I guess, but we're one step closer now and it was pretty painless!

[vleisme]

Thanks for your reply woeisme! One thing though, our atty said we don't have to have the house appraised he said we can just estimate its worth, sounds kind of funny to me that they would accept that .I guess if the trustee wants something more we will find on on December 6th at the 341.

[woeisme]

I went with a big lawfirm, and they keep changing their answer on that one! First attorney I saw for initial interview said I didn't need it because we just bought the house 3 years ago and had an appriasal done then, said that would be fine. When we went to sign the paperwork, they assigned us to a different attorney, she said the 3 year old appraisal wasn't sufficient, had to be in the past year, and we had to fork out $300 to get the appraisal, not something I wanted to do at that point!!! I got the appraisal, sent a copy to the lawyer, and the trustee at the 341 meeting today said he didn't have it and needed it, so I whipped out a copy from my purse. But the trustee didn't want the appraisal, he just wanted the attorney to fill out a form or something with the value of the appraisal, so I ended up giving the copy to the attorney, not the trustee. So my guess is that I probably didn't need to have the appraisal, if the attorney had just put in a value for the house based on the old appraisal (or from an estimate of fair market value even) the trustee probably wouldn't have blinked. So probably 1st lawyer who said old appraisal was fine (it was within $2500 of 2nd appraisal, and I was no where near state exemptions limit for equity with either one) was right, the second lawyer just wanted to be 100% sure there would be no issue with it, so cost me $300! But as the courts seem to vary so much from location to location and trustee to trustee, there seem to be no hard and fast rules for this process!