The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, in addition to placing new paperwork requirements on debtors, also placed new duties on the United States Trustee’s Office. Now, the United States Trustee must review all Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings and determine whether there is a “presumption of abuse”. The Office must file a statement of its finding of abuse within 10 days of the debtor’s meeting with the Chapter 7 trustee; the statement gets filed with the Bankruptcy Court. The Trustee reviews the “Means Test” form compared with the last sixty days of paystubs for the debtor. The United States Trustee can also request additional paperwork in order to make that determination. If the trustee determines that perhaps the filing of a Chapter 7 is “abusive”, then the next step is usually the filing of a Motion to Dismiss the Chapter 7 case (which can be translated into “we don’t think you belong in Chapter 7 — move the case into Chapter 13 or we will try to dismiss your case!!”).
No related posts.
You must log in to post a comment.