When filing for bankruptcy in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL, you and your lawyer must first decide whether to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy or a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. That should be determined at the initial free consultation.
A married person can file individually or jointly. When filing jointly, it is the same as filing individually for each person. You both get the same exemptions, and the procedures are exactly the same as if you had filed individually. Getting back to the process, after it is decided which chapter bankruptcy you will file, there are a lot of documents you will need to provide. That requirement is a continuing one. The main documents required in every case whether you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy or a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL are basically the same. You will need the last 3-5 years of tax returns depending on the trustee, six months of bank statements on all accounts where you have check signing authority, six months of pay stubs, if you are self-employed, then six months of gross income, your vehicle registration and insurance, the declaration pages of any life insurance, a copy of your retirement, and if you are suing someone, the name and phone number of the lawyer representing you. In a Chapter 7 case, the bankruptcy trustee in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL will require the bank statement received after you have filed the bankruptcy. They will want to see how much money you had in your bank accounts on the date of filing. In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach, the trustees require you give them your tax returns every year you are in bankruptcy. If your income increases significantly, they may require that you pay more money to unsecured creditors (credit cards or medical bills). If you significantly make less money than the prior year, your Chapter 13 plan payments may decrease.
Your lawyer will submit the documents you turn over to the bankruptcy trustee. The bankruptcy trustee in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL may request additional documents based on the documents presented to them. The bankruptcy trustee, especially in Miami, does not give a lot of time to produce these documents. So if we have a hearing on a Tuesday, the Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee will always request that we get them certain documents on Thursday or Friday before the hearing on the following Tuesday. So we do not have a lot of time to get these documents. Once we get the request from the Chapter 13 trustee, we will immediately contact you to tell you what the Chapter 13 trustee is requesting. Prior to the case being filed, you must take a credit counseling course. That is online, and will take about 20 minutes to complete.
Approximately six to eight weeks after the Chapter 13 case is filed, there will be a hearing. Because of Covid-19, these hearings are held on the phone. You must call in about 15 minutes prior to your hearing, put your phone on mute, and you can listen to other hearings. The Chapter 13 trustee will ask the same questions to you as they ask everyone else. They can have up to ten hearings every half hour when there are a lot of Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings. For a Chapter 7 case, the procedure is the same. However, the hearing will take place before the Chapter 7 trustee four to six weeks after the Chapter 7 bankruptcy case is filed. This hearing is called a Section 341 Meeting or a Meeting of Creditors. Creditors almost never show up in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach. The Section 341 Meeting is very informal. It is before a trustee of a trustee’s lawyer in a Chapter 13 case in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL. The meeting lasts maybe two minutes once you get called. You will be prepared by your lawyer before the Section 341 Meeting. Everyone will be nervous prior to the Section 341 Meeting because you have never been through it. But after the Section 341 Meeting, you will be very relieved because it is so informal. In Chapter 7 cases, the trustee in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach will probably be the one asking the questions. Some of these trustees are not even lawyers. Some of the Chapter 7 trustees in Miami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL are prepared prior to the Section 341 Meeting. Those hearings take about 2-3 minutes. Some Chapter 7 trustees in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach have not seen your file prior to the Section 341 Meeting. Those hearings can take up to five minutes because the Chapter 7 trustee is unprepared. Either way, the process will be very simple, but scary. When that hearing is over, you will have to take a second credit counseling course to get a discharge. The second credit counseling course takes about two hours to complete. If the second course is not taken and completed, your case will be closed without a discharge, and it will be like you never filed a bankruptcy. If that happens, you can always file a motion afterward to reopen your case, but that costs a lot of money in attorney fees and costs. So just take the course as fast as you can after your case if filed.
Almost all other hearings will be attended by the attorney. We try to make the bankruptcy process inMiami, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Palm Beach, FL as simple as possible.