Trustee not pursuing preferences/POC deadline

[Justinw93]

Hello! First time posting but this forum was very helpful back when I was in the initial stages of considering filing.

I have two questions that might be a bit rare, but wanted to see if anyone had any experience or input.

I filled for BK 7 in early fall 2019 and have received a discharge. I knew ahead of time that my case would end up as an asset case due to preferential payments to unsecured creditors. The total preference amount was around 6k, but I just got the trustee's final report, and he only got funds from 1 creditor for under 1k. What's going on? Did he not bother with the others or are they not complying with the request to pay back to the estate? It's my understanding the trustee would make more money by doing so since he gets a cut.

The only other thing that may explain it is the fact that the creditor that did pay is literally the first one listed in the filing and is on one page, and the rest follow on the next page. Did the trustee not flip the page?

Now that I think about it, in the 341 meeting when he asked me if I made any preference payments, I said yes, and he asked to who. So I started down the list with the first creditor, I answered his follow up question about it, and then while I was about to move on and talk about the rest, he moved on and didn't ask if there were any others. I didn't want to interrupt so I just let him lead the questions and he never came back to the subject, so I didn't bring it up. I can't imagine him not seeing the rest I listed, but who knows....

Second question: I owed a lot of money to a couple family members but they didn't want to bother filing a proof of claim. I did research before their deadline to file, and thought I understood from rule 3004, that I could file on their behalf within 30 days after their POC filing deadline, which I did. But the trustee's report shows the ones I filed as being late. What gives? Is a debtor filing on behalf of a creditor always going to be considered late, yet allowed, or did the trustee make a mistake? I would be more concerned about this if he had actually gotten back the 6k that he seemingly was supposed to, but not as important now.

Thanks for taking the time to read and feel free to ask questions.

[justbroke]

I'm assuming that you filed Pro Se. The Trustee was probably stunned, or not, that you didn't understand exactly what types of preferences that a reasonable Trustee would pursue. For example, payments to secured creditors are not preferences.

As for family, friends and other discharged debt, absolutely nothing in the code prevents a debtor from paying back any discharged debt. The only prohibition on collection is on the creditors.

Also, in a No Asset case, filing a claim is quite moot. It's useless and worthless since there is no distribution. Usually, in an Asset Case or a Chapter 13 (which are all Asset Cases), a debtor would file for "secured" creditors and never for unsecured creditors (in most cases). A lot of this is strategy and other portions are accepted practice within the bankruptcy court.

I can't tell the status of your case but if the Trustee filed a Report of No Distribution, then that is the indication that it's both a No Asset Case and that the Trustee is not pursuing any creditors for preferences.