Desperately need advice.

[DQ1976]

I am hoping someone can give me some suggestions.

My husband and I filed Chapter 7. We have no assets except my husband is one of three partners in an LLC. It is a very small herd of dairy cattle. We receive no income for these cattle, they are not even paid off. Our lawyer told us (after we asked her numerous times before filing) that the trustee wouldn't have a problem with this partnership because our equity is so minimal due to the animals not being even close to being paid off and there are two other partners. We went to the 341 hearing and the trustee had issues. He told us to either liquidate, have the other partners buy out my husband, or convert to Chapter 13. He gave us so long to decide and then four days before that date, filed a petition to aquire a lawyer to look into the liquidation of the cattle. Since filing chapter 7, I have just begun working and if we convert to chapter 13, ALL of my earnings would be considered "disposable" and would have to go into the plan. We simply cannot afford that. My lawyer is being very vague with me so I am hoping someone here can offer some suggestions. The cattle are very sentimental to my husband even though not worth a whole lot. So, he would rather forget the whole thing and try our best to work out arrangements with our creditors. I have been told that you cannot withdraw a chapter 7 petition after filing it, but can we get it dismissed? Anyone have any suggestions? I would really appreciate any input anyone could give me. Thanks.

[HHM]

Well, since you already filed BK, your creditors will be loathe to work something out, afterall and depending on how much debt you have, it may not be practically possible (but that is a question for you to figure out with your available resource, my guess, since you filed chapter 7, you don't have any resources to work anything out with your creditors, so that is probably wishful thinking).

If the there is a superior lien holder on the cattle, and the LLC is technically insolvent, meaning that the liabilities (i.e. the note on the cattle and other epenses) exceed the value of the heard and any revenue, you shouldn't have anything to worry about, let the trustee do his thing and discover for himself there is no value there. However, ultimately these are issues you have to work out with your lawyer.

[DQ1976]

Is it true, though, that since I am now working we will need to at least amend our chapter 7 petition to incluce my income? When they see that we now have "disposable" income, will they tell us to convert to 13 or face dismissal of the 7?

[HHM]

No you don't, so long as you are in a Chapter 7, any income received after you filed BK, is not part of your BK.