BAPCPA STILL Wasting My Time

The hobby horse I was all set to ride today has to do with the pay stubs that I have to collect from my clients prior to filing any bankruptcy case.  I’ll get to that later.  I got sidetracked when I did a search to see if any of my colleagues had recently written on the same topic–we don’t want to bore you with the same harangue every time you log on.  What came up instead was one of my own posts, Top Ten Wastes of Time After BAPCPA, written some time ago.  So I read it again, to see if anything had changed, hopefully for the better.  Alas, no, I’m still wasting my time on those same things, including this one, which was number five on my hit parade:

Gathering pay stubs and payment advices for all income for the seven months before the bankruptcy petition. The “means test” is based on the six calendar months prior to the month in which the case is filed, and pay advices for the 60 days prior to filing must be filed with the court. And that’s not just for your job (or jobs)–that’s tax refunds, IRA or 401k withdrawals, unemployment, worker’s compensation, or insurance payments….

I have spent a good part of the last week involved in this paper chase, and I struggle with how to handle the matter with my clients.  I don’t want to be obnoxious, and refuse to let a client (who has maybe gotten off work just to come to my office) go ahead and sign paperwork when there are missing pay stubs, but my choices are limited.  I can be hard-nosed, and refuse to let them sign; I can let them sign but wait a short time to file the case until I have the necessary documentation, running the risk that something else (and more significant) will change in the meantime; or I can let them sign, file the case, and hope that they remember to provide the information before the United States Trustee or a creditor asks the court to dismiss the case for the lack of one lousy pay stub. 

I think the real problem is that it is difficult to communicate to clients how picky and picayune these technical requirements of BAPCPA are.  It is particularly difficult for clients who are salaried, whose paychecks are all identical, to get real worked up over a missing check stub.  Yes, I can extrapolate the information I need.  But I need to file the actual document.  If it’s lost, I can file a statement that says so, and provides the information.  But I can’t do that if the problem is that my client just hasn’t bothered to get it to me.

There is a problem (other than driving your attorney to tear her hair out) with failure to provide all the documentation required by BAPCPA at the time your case is filed.  You may know that your last pay stub is identical to the 48 other stubs you did give your attorney, but the folks who are reviewing that information for your creditors and the court don’t know it.  They are going to draw a negative conclusion–they are going to assume that the one paycheck you didn’t provide is the one that showed a raise, or a bonus, or some other information that you didn’t want them to know.  They don’t think to themselves how difficult it may be to find all those stubs, how they get coffee spilled on them, or are used to make grocery lists, or stuck in the pocket of a coat that you haven’t worn in a while.  They don’t think how many times you have been advised to shred any document that has personal information on it as soon as you have verified its accuracy.  Nope, they assume that you have something to hide.  And treat you accordingly.

So, now that you understand that your attorney is really trying to protect your interests, and do things right for you, and that she and her staff really aren’t just trying to make your life a misery, hunt up those stubs, and take them to her.  She’ll be grateful.  And then she’ll ask you for your 2006 W-2, but that’s another story.