Thanks for visiting and for your interest. My paralegal experience goes back several decades in different areas of law. I came back to bankruptcy as a virtual paralegal shortly after BACPA passed.As a bankruptcy paralegal, I get a sense of accomplishment each time I hit the “file case” button in my bankruptcy software and a new case is uploaded to the court. It means that all the loose ends have been tied, the attorney has reviewed the bankruptcy petition, and the client signed. While the client set everything in motion the day he or she contacted the attorney, hitting the button and filing the case electronically with the court sets it in motion in my mind.
But now a trustee will be assigned to the case (as will a judge) who is going to have additional requirements of documents to be submitted (beyond what was included in the 50-some page bankruptcy petition). Because I work as a virtual assistant, I am not as involved with this aspect of the case: responding to trustee requirements and requests. My attorneys (spread around the country) generally handle this themselves.
However, even if I do not have responsibility for transmitting documents to the trustee, I still need to know these requirements. The information in the bankruptcy petition is extracted from these documents. You can be sure someone in the trustee’s office has the job of comparing the petition to the documents provided post-filing. (And they better jive!)
San Diego Bankruptcy Attorney Michael G. Doan recently authored a post on the Bankruptcy Law Network: New Chapter 7 Trustee Due Diligence Documents: Southern District Of California . Attorney Doan gives an example of some of the documents required by trustees in this district:
The guideline documents typically result in 50 to 150 additional pages of documents to be provided to the trustee in addition to the 50 page bankruptcy petition. Such documents include but are not limited to payoff and trust deeds on real estate, insurance policies on real estate and vehicles, vehicle registration and payoffs, bank balances for bankruptcy filing date, paystubs, tax returns, domestic support orders, etc.
Visit the link to view the CASD trustees’ due diligence requirements document. While this document applies specifically to the Southern District of California, I think it gives a pretty good representation of what bankruptcy trustees either already require or might request in a case if they believe it is warranted.