| If a debtor intentionally omits an asset (for example, cash or money in a bank account) from his petition, that can be considered bankruptcy fraud and lead to difficulty. An empty bank account is not an asset, but a trustee would want to know about its existence in order to be able to verify that it was empty at the time of filing. Opening a bank account or earning and depositing post-petition earnings into a bank account after filing under ch. 7 does not require notice be given to anybody and is not fraud. In a ch. 13 case, however, the debtor typically turns over all or a portion of his paycheck to the ch. 13 trustee in order to fund the plan. Using a secret bank account to hide income from the trustee would not be a good idea.
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Walter Oney, Attorney at Law (Massachusetts)
Nothing in this message should be construed as legal advice or as establishing an attorney-client relationship.
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