Panic questions after yesterday's 341 meeting

[micahCT]

I filed in Connecticut, pro se. We had our 341 meeting yesterday and it seemed to go pretty smoothly. There were two questions though that I answered to the trustee that now I'm freaking out about.

1) He knew we rented our home and asked if there was a security deposit. There is, so I told him it was $1,300 and he wrote that down. I didn't think anything about it at the time. After the meeting I started thinking about my paperwork and couldn't remember where I would have previously declared that. I just checked my Schedule B line 3 where it asks if I have any security deposits and I had checked "none."

What do I do now?! The first couple lines of the question on the form talk about utility and telephone company deposits so I entered $0 without realizing it. Am I screwed? Do I need to do anything now or do I wait and see what happens. If there's a problem, with the Trustee contact me?

2) He asked if we had sold any vehicles in the last year. Again, I don't remember anywhere in the paperwork asking about that. I told him that we had traded in 2 cars when we bought our current 2 cars. He wrote that down, year make and model. I don't know what this mean? Why did he care? The cars both had liens and we only broke even on them (trading them in for what we owed.)

[frogger]

Patience grasshopper and don't panic. There are a lot of people that miss a lot of things on the paperwork, including the attorneys. You just disclosed some things that you forgot and he made a note of them because they are a part of your bankruptcy assets. Everything will work out fine. Remember - bankruptcy is a process, not an event.

Good luck.

[LadyInTheRed]

Definitely do not panic. I am sure these are the types of things that people forget to include on their petition all of the time which is why the trustee knows to ask about them.

If you have an exemption available to cover the deposit, I would file an amended Schedule B to list the asset and an amended Schedule C to exempt it. Did you use state or federal exemptions? It looks like state exemptions cover security deposits for one home. If you used federal, hopefully you have some wildcard exemption left.

If the sale of the cars (which is really what a trade in is) needed to be listed, it would have been on the statement of financial affairs. If there is a place to put that, I don't know if amending matters at this point since the trustee now knows about it and can investigate to make sure title was really transferred and that you did not transfer them to an insider for less than market value.

[micahCT]

Thanks for helping me now worry!

For the Deposit thing, do you think I should contact the trustee and just ask what he wants me to do? or should I wait to see if he or the court contact me first? Maybe its not a big deal and I should just wait to find out that its a problem, opposed to turning it into an issue my submitting the amendment.

Thoughts?

[justbroke]

micahCT the Trustee is not going to provide you with legal advice, so asking the Trustee is not useful. Typically the Trustee or his/her assistant running the 341 Meeting will let you know if you need to amend right there. The things you left off are typical. If the Trustee asks for the deposit to be surrendered to him/her, then just do what LadyInTheRed wrote; amend your schedules. There's nothing stopping you from amending those schedules now if you think it's worthwhile.

Unless and until the Trustee asks more about this deposit or demands that it be turned over to the Trustee, then there may be nothing to do.

[LadyInTheRed]

I agree with justbroke that asking the trustee will not be helpful and that there may ultimately be be nothing you need to do. I also don't think that filing an amendment will cause any problems because it will not bring up anything that the trustee did not already learn at the 341. Whether to amend now or await for action by the trustee that may never happen is a judgement call only you can make.

[despritfreya]

Schedules should be amended once you become aware of an issue (even if not a big deal). Schedule B - Item 3 (deposits) with an exemption, if applicable, on Schedule C and question 10 (transfers) on the SOFA.

As others have said. . . don't panic.

Des.