Chapter 7 Expense question

[HHM]

rockobuster

Just what is your combined (you and your spouse) gross monthly income.

Retirement contributions are tricky, afterall, think through the logic of it. If you are "insolvent" which is what is to be bankrupt, then why would you be able to save for your retirement? If the contribution is relatively small, i.e. less than $100 per month, it probably won't be a problem; unless, combined with other "luxury" expenses (your golf membership comes to mind here), you would have enough disposable income to finance a chapter 13 plan.

As for the organization of things, the "Bankruptcy Trustee", i.e. the person you actually meet with is appointed by the U.S. Trustee. The U.S. Trustee is a component of the U.S. Dept. of Justice. The BK Trustee and the U.S. Trustee work in tandem. Ultimately, BK's are approved or rejected by the BK Court. The US Trustee is looking out for BK fraud and abuse.

[edwards2]

I am sure the moderator could better answer your question but from what I understand it goes from the BK trustee to the US trustee and that is it. There is no DA unless there is some kind of fraud. The BK trustee recommends or not and typically the US Trustee usually goes along with he/she.

[rockobuster]

We had our 341 meeting on 5/13 and it did go easier than I had expected. The only nervous part was one of our credit card creditors showed up. Chase asked an attorney to be there to object to the two charges that were within 60 days of filing ($3,000 and $5,000).

It wasn't too bad until the trustee was done asking questions and the creditor starting asking me questions:
1) At what point did you know that you were in financial trouble?
2) How were you able to continue making your credit card payment even though you were in financial trouble?
3) Before you filed bk with an attorney, had you sought out help from a lawyer before?

Because this was taking longer than the trustee liked, he asked us to either schedule another meeting, or take the questions he had out into the hallway (which would be off the record). The creditor stated that he was done asking me questions on the record (which was very stressfull since I did not anticipate answering those kind of questions) and our attorney met with him and us outside.

The creditor basically stated that Chase wanted this on the record that they were objecting, basically because of our salary, and we had only had this credit card since 2003, and that they are really cracking down on gambling losses. He did recommend settling with Chase since he felt that one charge was within the 60 days ($3,000) and the other was outside the 60 days, that Chase had a good chance of winning.

The trustee noted that we had $200 in disposable income and he was recommending putting our DirectTV of $150 into the disposable income and golf membership of $300 also in the disposable income, which would put us at $650 a month.

Does anyone know if we decide to settle with the credit card companies that object, if the trustee will still recommend a motion for a discharge based on the disposable income he is submitting to the courts? I don't mind trying to settle with the credit cards, but I don't want to do that and then also be pushed into a chapter 13. If would not seem possible to make all those payment amounts.

[HHM]

If the trustee is saying you have disposable income, it won't matter whether you settle with Chase or not. Sounds like they are going to force you into a chapter 13. The benefit of the 13 however, is that you don't have to settle with Chase.

[rockobuster]

What I am not sure of is the timing. Wouldn't we be better off to wait until the 60-days before we decide to settle with Chase?

I wasn't sure at what point the trustee would have to decide to file a motion of dismissal in chapter 7?