Doesn't the Trustee have a DUTY here??

[anabanana]

What is the name of your state? FL


You know, I am going nuts trying to figure out how to fight this stupid bankruptcy. The filing is full of lies and baloney from front to back. The debtor's assertions are clearly contradicted by documentation in the public record, and the debtor has not provided the documentation the trustee asked for, but it seems like nobody minds, like it's just going to fall through the cracks and get rubber stamped. even though there is already a negative recommendation.

She tried to say she'd gotten rid of her custom Harley months before the filing, and traded it for work on her house. She didn't, and motor vehicle records show she actually reregistered it in her own name seven months after she supposedly traded it. Then at the 341 (three months after she renewed the registration) she said under oath, again, that she had traded it. Then a month after the 341, she amended her filing, but didn't happen to mention that she still owned the $20,000 motorcycle. Then about a month after that, she sold the Harley for cash, and that's reflected in the public record! But instead of paying off 2/3 of the roughly $28,000 of unsecured debt, she decided to use the money to add a spa and pool cage to her house.

Also, at the 341 meeting she admitted she had in the neighbordhood of $100,000 worth of stock, but wouldn't say how much. She hadn't included it on her filing, and her attorney said it didn't matter because it was "exempt." Except that you're supposed to list it anyway, if I'm not mistaken, and the judge/trustee will decide if it is or isn't exempt, and I pointed out at the 341 that this stock wasn't EVER in a protected retirement instrument. So the trustee asked for stock statements going back two years, and statements from any and all retirement instruments. The debtor eventually provided ONE statement from ONE brokerage account showing less than $1,000 in shares. SO WHERE'S THE REST OF IT??? No one is following up but me, and I don't have the wherewithall.

Isn't the trustee supposed to pursue this? I'm pro se, I'm ignorant, I'm overwhelmed, and this isn't a matter of the legitimacy of my claim, this goes to the validity of the whole filing. This filing is a big fat LIE, and I've written the trustee and explained all this, offered to do the legwork and provide supporting documentation. SHOULDN'T the trustee DO something here? We had the preliminary hearing and now my motion to dismiss is going to trial on March 31, and I'm totally out of my element, her attorney is going to wipe the floor with me on points of law and procedure, and the facts won't get to see daylight if they have to depend on me to carry it. I'm not a LAWYER! Isn't the trustee's job to make sure the system isn't abused? What the hell do I do? I'm worn out...

 

[anabanana]

Who would I call to complain? Is there any point? Is this trustee abdicating responsibility? I feel like I just walked into the police station with the dead body and they said, "Whaddya want us to do about it?" Leaving me to do this is like expecting a private prosecution, for pete's sake. What the hell do I know? All I have is a truckload of relevant documentary evidence.

 

[Ladynred]

I can understand your frustration. If you can't afford a lawyer to intercede, well, you're doing a pretty good job so far.

You shouldn't assume that the Trustee or the BK court 'doesn't care' because you've heard nothing. You've got a court date to make your case.

If the Trustee has asked her to cough up documentation, unless the Trustee is a complete wuss, she's going to have to come up with the papers that were asked for.

You just need to have all your ducks in a row, all your evidence ready to counter the lies on her BK schedules. Public records are damn good evidence.

What do you have to prove the stock at $100K and not the $1000 claimed ??

Cold hard facts, hard evidence, and having it all organized can go a long way in court. You are allowed to do this pro se, whether they like it or not.

 

[dcw888]

I recently went through the same ordeal & managed to get my settlement seperated from my EX's Chapter 13 & therefore was able to collect the settlement due me from our divorce agreement.

If you are correct in what you stated, go back to Step 1 & get copies of everything, lay the ground work to prove it. Then make copies for yourself, his attorney & the trustee. Hand them to them in person, or ceritifed mail. I basically laid everything out in the open & had some (but not all serial# to guns & such & where they were last seen) & listed everything of value I could that I knew he had left out. If the car/boat/motorcycle is parked somewhere, go get a photo of it. I went line per line all the way through his filings & made line by line notations, backed with as much detail as I could come up with. It was to the point that the heifer he had moved in with was being required to list her income to prove she was in fact charging him the rent he stated.

You can do this. And yes, it is the trustee's job to try & catch this stuff, but if you have laid it all out there for them to see, they can't help but file motions for him to explain/change or come up with facts to disprove you. It may take a while, but who cares?

Good luck, you can do it.

 

[anabanana]

>>>If the Trustee has asked her to cough up documentation, unless the Trustee is a complete wuss, she's going to have to come up with the papers that were asked for.<<<

It's not that they're wusses, it's just that there are SO many cases, they can't possibly check to see if everyone has put up the docs they were ordered to provide. It's just a "slipping through the cracks" thing. Florida is the biggest debtor haven in the world, so these guys have a disproportionately heavy case load, I understand.

As far as proof on the stock, all I have is ONE three year old stock statement showing $185K worth of stock. My claim that there's about $100K is based on the market losses that everybody suffered, minus the debtor's single $12,000 stock sale that is listed on the schedules, and the fact that no sales show up on the tax returns the trustee got (the debtor didn't turn over the other docs they asked for, except for that one stock statement.)

But my thinking is that even if it's old, there is no evidence that the debtor SOLD more stock, and since the purchases were automatic payroll deduction and automatic DRP reinvestments, there should be MORE shares, not less (except for the $12K listed), and even if the market tanked, it's still a solid, long range, evenly performing blue chip stock, that's worth about $35 a share today, as opposed to the $54 it was selling for at the peak of the boom. And it's hiding somewhere. Seems like a DUH! to me.


Am I going to be able to go in and say, Judge, I don't know all the legal mumbo jumbo. I want the BK dismissed on the grounds of FRAUD, and here are my points of evidence... am I going to make it? Is the other attorney going to be able to shut me down on some kind of procedural grounds because I can't cite chapter and verse??

 

[Ladynred]

In order to really get the court's attention to this, you're going to have to do what DCW did - pick apart her filing line by line with the proof to prove that each bogus entry IS in fact, a LIE.

I'd definitely use the Brokerage statement you have. There HAS to be records of sales somewhere, IF she claims it was sold off. 185K worth of steady blue-chip stock doesn't drop to 1K with no sales - not in the last 3 years.

Suggestion for you - get a record of the stocks performance of the last 3 years, a month by month tracking of the average price would certainly show that the she didnt' lose 173K to a bad market. It would be a pretty good refute to any claim that the stock tanked and she lost it all.

I also have come into some interesting info for you. Email me and I'll pass it along

 

[anabanana]

My experience so far, in this court and others, is that no one really wants all those details. They jut want to process you and get you outta there. Thank you, drive thru!

I was listening to the audio of the 341 the other day, and thank goodness I didn't go through the schedules in order, but rather, started with what I thought were the lies most likely to have a bearing on income or assets. Because after I raised three or four questions that caught the trustee's attention, he let me go for quite a while with my questions, before he said, okay, now you're getting into small stuff.

What I put in my last letter to them was that it seemed to me that "an overwhelming aggregate of lies is probably less likely to catch anyone's interest because it would be such a pain to look into. Therefore, let me lay out again a couple of the debtor's whoppers:"

Having done that, do y'all think it's worth my while to enumerate the smaller ones, or am I going to annoy them with all that? I don't want to be seen as a pain in the neck...

 

[anabanana]

DCW-- Why did you have to get your marital settlement agreement separated from the BK anyway? Isn't alimony or whatever supposed to be a priority claim? Or was it more complicated? Mine is a very sticky wicket because we have children and were together for ten years, but we were never married. It's alarming how very little standing I have outside of the family court... I've got the info, but I can't seem to figure out just how it needs to be presented, what's grounds, what's evidence, what's testimony... Law & Order it ain't, that's for sure...

thanks for your encouragement, both of you...

 

[dcw888]

Alimony & Child Support don't get written off , but a Divorce Settlement can be in a Bankruptcy unless you can prove it was a form of support. Which mine wasn't, it was pure settlement of not a hell of a lot for 26 years, but that's why I decided I wasn't going to get "shafted" one more time for ole time sake.

Your's isn't any more stcky than anyone's. I had 26 years of working side by side in a family business & raising 3 children. I lost my home, my credit & almost my family. My Ex filed, listing me as an unsecured creditor (even though I had a secured "lien" on his share of an estate he was going to inheirtant) He listed me with no known address, therefore I wasn't notified by the court of his filing. I was down to the wire when I did find out about it.

As I stated, I first went to the court & got a copy of his bankruptcy filing. I went line by line & if there was something left out or stated that I knew was untrue, I made notes. I didn't have complete records on everything. But, when I did, I went into detail. (Example, he listed car insurance but had not listed any vehicles. So, I listed the year, make & models AND the license plate numbers, as well as the insurance company that was insuring the vehicles. I also stated, why does he show the expense of insurance for a vehicle if he doesn't have one valued? One way or the other something was going to have to be adjusted) I went so far as listing his registered English Springer Spaniel hunting dog (there was a spot on his Chapter 13 that asked about dogs) If he left something out, I tried the best to fill in the blanks. Where it asked for any property sold, given away etc. I listed a whole lot there. (My Ex was so hateful as to not let me take what he had promised & then giving most of it away &/or throwing it away.) I knew who he had given a large portion of my things to, so I listed their name & address & phone #. I figured there was a chance he might not want to be called in under oath & lie to cover up for my Ex. And even if he wasn't called in, at least his attorney & the court knew I just wasn't going to go away.

I then neatly typed up everything & made 3 copies, mine, the truste's & his attorney. I handed then out at the first hearing. I explained then that I would go to my death bed fighting this. I was not rude or loud, just stated fact. I also told the trustee that I would do any leg work needed, that if he had filed honestly, that was one thing, but he was going to inheirtant over $100,000.00 when the estate settled.(which meant making copies of the will & providing them in my neatly tied up packages along with my divorce decree & the copy of the lien on his share of the estate. (my Ex had stated that he was an heir but had not listed an amount)

All this is not what got my settlement. And yes it dragged on for months, but I kept filing motions. They all knew I was not going away. The trustee filed some of her own, based on my records & notes. The point is, I kept his bankruptcy from going forward or being discharged, until his attorney finally approached me with a deal. In fact, I was so surprised & thought I was at my last hearing (I just knew it was over & was either going to HAVE to hire an attorney or loose) & when his attorney & I agreed & went before the judge, the judge asked me something I knew the answer to, but didn't know the "legal" wording, so I turned to Ex's attorney & said under my breath, "you answer that, this is your deal..." He did & the judge asked me if this was part of my support & I stated "No, it's part of my divorce settlement" (I sucked in air till the judge smiled & said, OK!

All I was getting was $5000.00 of which $1200.00 was going to my divorce attorney.It wasn't a lot to many, but my Ex had forced me into bankruptcy & I had claimed this settlement in my filing & I was going to get it one way or the other or make sure my Ex was going to have to pay me out as a SECURED creditor, or risk a fine/jail time for filing a false document.

In closing, no matter what you consider to be small, I would list it & any trail of evidence you might have as to what happened to it or not, because compounded into a whole, it will (if nothing else) show your determination to be a thorn in someone's side or force someone to have to force the filer to prove otherwise.