341 today and husband lost his job

[mysterie91]

I can't believe the timing of this - my husband was let go from his job on Friday. Now, of course we have already filed Chapter 7 and have our 341 today.

We have no "fall-back" safety net, if you want to call it that. No availability of credit cards (should we get really stuck like when he was out of work 3 years ago) and no way to get the student loan company, car or mortgage companies to work with us if this unemployment drags out becuase of the BK filing.

I was just really worried about the 341 and whether the trustee will say anything about the "stimulus checks". Now I am just worried about EVERYTHING. The paralegal said they have no idea what the trusee's stand is on the stimulus checks and we have to wait and see if he says anything about it at the 341. Great. We will need every penny we can get to make it through this. It's not like we have a ton of money now that we filed - things are still tight - price of gas and food is crazy around here.

So if he doesn't say anything about it today do we wait and see if he will file something to take the checks? Can he do that right up until the day of discharge?

[rrockinggramma]

ask him at the 341 outright. Tell him your situation. Most trustee's ask if you have any questions. I guess in this situation, you will need to take the bull by the horns

[dannyz]

When I originally applied for Ch. 7 I was worried that they might take my tax refund. I mentioned it to my attorney and he said that up to $20,000 is protected and they can't touch it. This is what he told me. I am not a 100% sure though.

[imbroke2]

Are you working? My husband had lost his job right after we filed Chapter 13 and still was unemployed when we went to the 341. I of course was working and we had his unemployment checks to work with. They know it's not a permanent situation, but be upfront about the job loss. Good luck.

[mysterie91]

Thanks for the replies. We are done with the 341. The trustee took a long time with everyone and we were last on the list. We met with one of the attorneys from the firm prior - not the one we had been dealing with all along and we did not care for him much. He (the atty) asked us a few questions about our tax return and said we should be prepared to send the trustee the stimulus rebate.

I said I was confused because I was told by our actual paralegal on Friday that they did not know how the trustees would act with that stimulus. He stared arguing with me that no trustee or judge would let you keep the rebate and that the trustee will tell us how to sign it over and where to send it. He said because in NYS you aren't allowed ANY cash exemption if you take the homestead exemption for your house/property that we had no right to keep the money.

And honestly, I was ticked, I mean, really, ticked. They are even going to take the $300 we get for our son? He doesn't have anything to do with the bankruptcy. The attorney says that well people don't actually give that money to their kids. No idiot they use it to put food in those little mouths and clothes on their backs.

So were last up and the trustee asked a lot of questions - just as he has with everyone else - do you own the car, how much do you still owe, did we re-affirm that car, how much is daycare - (there was a lot of discussion about that). He asked about the 2002 car that is paid off but did not say if or how much he expects us to pay to keep it. He had asked almost everyone else if they had received their tax refund and how they had spent it. He never mentioned it to us. Didn't ask about it and made no mention of the stimulus. Just said if someone dies and we inherit property or money within 180 days of filing we have to tell him and the attorney.

So now we wait. I am not sure if it went well or not - seeing that he didn't ask as many questions about the taxes and the car. I couldn't tell if he was tired and starving and figured he would nail us later or if he was just decent to us. I know he has up to the date of discharge to demand the car or payment for it and the stimulus checks.

So now we wait. Thanks for the advice from everyone!