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Top Ten Mistakes in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Written by: Joseph C McDaniel

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Posted almost 3 years ago. 3 helpful votes, 0 comments

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Here are the first five (non-exclusive) ways to go wrong in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case!

These are just some personal picks; there are more ways than these, of course. 1) Fail to list assets (come on, people; it's a no-brainer-list all your assets that have any value at all, and the worthless ones also!) 2) Fail to appear at your 341 meeting (First Meeting of Creditors) 3) Fail to list creditors (why are you doing all this? To get a discharge, right? So list creditors even if you don't want to because you plan to pay them, or even if you don't want somebody to know about your bankruptcy) 4) Filing inside an insider preference period (if you paid dad back $100,000 on a legit debt 11 months ago, don't you think he'd appreciate it if you waited an extra 32 days or so to file?) 5) Failing to show up with BOTH your driver's license and social security card at the First Meeting of Creditors

Here are another five (non-exclusive) ways to go wrong in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case!

6) Selling the $40,000 Corvette to your sister for a dollar the day before you file your consumer chapter 7 bankruptcy petition (it's called a fraudulent transfer, and it's really, really stupid; sorry for the judgmental attitude, but it is!) 7) Refusing to turn over your income tax refund to your Chapter 7 trustee 8) Failing to give the trustee the documents he or she wants per the Trustee Letter you will receive right after you file 9) Filing a second or third consumer bankruptcy under a different name or social security number than the first one in an effort to fool creditors and the Court 10) Failing to take BOTH of the consumer credit education classes required under the 2005 bankruptcy amendments. Mind you, there are plenty of other ways to goof up; these just jumped out and bit me when I thought about the topic. And nothing in the above constitutes legal advice, of course. Find a good bankruptcy lawyer for that!