It's good to know what to expect before you decide to file for bankruptcy. Most cases are the same and the process is also similar. We will assume you have a bankruptcy lawyer. After your papers have been filed with the court, it will take 4 to 8 weeks to get a court date.
Since the court is overloaded with cases, they have trustees review bankruptcy files. The trustee is a lawyer appointed by the court to review your records and verify information. When finished the trustee sends your file to the judge, the judge will approve the bankruptcy and all debt is discharged.
The Trustee Meeting
If you hired a lawyer, they will be at the meeting with you in case any questions come up. The trustee has your file and documents required by the court. You will be sworn in and the questioning will start. In most cases the trustee has reviewed your case ahead of time, if all required documents have been given to the court the questioning will be very short. They might ask questions like: What happened to cause your financial hardship? Did you consider debt settlement? Have you claimed all assets? Questions like this.
If the documents are incomplete or you're missing information, the trustee will request the missing information and a new court date will be set. At the next meeting you will provide the missing information, this will be a short meeting and your case will be sent to the judge.
Generally it takes a month or so for the judge to review your case. This depends on the case load of the court. Once the judge gets to your case it's a day or so for approval. When it becomes official, all debt is discharged. Of course, the time frames are different for chapter 7 versus chapter 13.
Conclusion
Having a lawyer there doesn't take you off the hook from answering questions, basically it's if something goes wrong in the proceedings, your lawyer can straighten it out. All the preliminary work that would qualify you for bankruptcy is done before you go in front of the trustee. The trustee is not there to trick you, they do most of the check and balance work for the judge. The trustee does this part of the process because the courts are overloaded.
It generally takes about 60 days after the trustee sends your case to the judge to get the final discharge. If you prepared properly and your lawyer did his job, this part of the process should go smoothly. For most people the thought of going to court, or in this case in front of the trustee, is worse than the actual bankruptcy. Don't torture yourself, look forward to the financial independence you will have after your debt is discharged. Just keep in mind how deadly debt can be.
This "get out of debt card" is granted to you every eight years (chapter 7), something to keep in mind.
