Central District Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney's Association

Holly:
The trustee gets to ask.
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On Oct 16, 2010, at 6:15 PM, "Armen Shaghzo" wrote:
Trustee is permitted to inquire until satisfied. May also be to your advantage to deal with it at a 341a rather than a 2004 hearing or more time consuming an AP.
Trustee has an obligation to inquire into the assets of the debtor. Even if debtor's counsel has conducted and concluded that a personal or real property is separate, not community, Trustee should be able to inquire and make that determination on their own. Trustee may still dispute your analysis at the end and may require the production of evidence to establish that property was and remains separate, and may even assert a proportionate CP claim based on CP contributions. ultimately, trustee must make the determination irrespective of counsel's analysis. My suggestion.
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Specifically, I have heard trustees ask the debtor whether the debtor's
nonfiling spouse owns any property not listed on the petition. I understand
the trustee is trying to get at community property that may have not been
listed because the debtor erroneously considered his wife's stuff to be
"hers" when in reality it may be CP. However, if the nonfiling spouse truly
owns separate property and it is significant, and the debtor's counsel has
adequately analyzed that issue prior to filing, then the debtor should not
have to answer the question since the spouse's separate property is not part
of the estate. So, how do you suggest dealing with that question without
totally angering the trustee, but without lying (obviously)? Objection -
relevance? Or, let the debtor go ahead and testify all about the spouse's
separate property because, hey, it's separate?
Holly Roark
holly@roarklawoffices.com
www.roarklawoffices.com
Central District of California
Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney
Specifically, I have heard trustees ask the debtor whether the debtor's nonfiling spouse owns any property not listed on the petition. I understand the trustee is trying to get at community property that may have not been listed because the debtor erroneously considered his wife's stuff to be "hers" when in reality it may be CP. However, if the nonfiling spouse truly owns separate property and it is significant, and the debtor's counsel has adequately analyzed that issue prior to filing, then the debtor should not have to answer the question since the spouse's separate property is not part of the estate. So, how do you suggest dealing with that question without totally angering the trustee, but without lying (obviously)? Objection - relevance? Or, let the debtor go ahead an
The post was migrated from Yahoo.