In every Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, there is a Trustee appointment by the court to oversee the administration of your case. In most cases, there are no assets to be administered. However, the Trustee still needs to do an investigation to make certain. The investigation typically involves him asking several questions at the 341 meeting of creditors. The Trustee will also review the schedules to see if there is any item that needs further explanation. Provided there are no assets, the Trustee will quickly adjourn the meeting and move on to the next case. The narrative below talks about the Trustee’s search for assets in greater detail.
David Siegel: Why is the trustee engaging in a search for assets?
Jesse Barrientes: Well, it’s his job as the trustee. Everything — once you file a Chapter 7, those assets belong really to the trustee. They are held in trust. They don’t really belong to the trustee but because you are availing yourself of the Bankruptcy Court for protection, they are going to look to make sure. And I think you alluded to that earlier. If you have assets to pay a creditor, all right, that go beyond the exemption that we will talk about in a moment, then you are going to pay that creditor back. I can’t expect that I am going to discharge all my debts but I still get to keep this pot of money that I have in the bank, okay? It doesn’t work that way because it wouldn’t be fair. If I’ve got $100,000 in a bank account and I still want to do a bankruptcy, not so much. So he’s just looking. He is doing his due diligence essentially, is what that is.
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