The Creditors Meeting - Part 5

This day finally came. We're (my wife Jenni and me) at the Federal building early, about half an hour. We were told to be there early to have plenty of time to get through the security. The place we need to be is on the third floor. As we come up around the corner, there is two people sitting in this empty hall way. The door is locked. Its really quiet. So we sat down trying to not make too much noise as the old waiting room chairs squeaked. There was still about 28 minutes left till our "appointment". There was a clock on the wall so we just sat there quietly as the minutes passed.

A few more people started to come up. Then a heavy-set man with a black rolling suitcase came up. He stood there for a minute and then walked off, leaving the suit case there, right in the middle of all the people that were here. I didn't feel very comfortable with that. All the terrorism news make me a bit paranoid about these kind of things. Jenni suggested that we walk around the corner because she also wasn't very comfortable with that. Then as we walked, the man that left the suitcase was on his way back, he just went to the rest room. That made both of us feel a lot better.

About five minutes to 9, the presiding "Judge" opened the door and we all started pouring into the room. This wasn't the court room you always see on TV, this was a room that reminded me of a classroom. There was rows of foldable chairs and in the front of the room was the "bench". They took 2 "lunch room" tables and slid them together to make one square table.

It is time. The judge called another couple first then us. As we came up to the bench, our attorney met us there at the big table.

He asked to see our driver licenses and social security cards as proof of identity.

The judge asked us,
"Do you swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?", we said, "yes".

So he went on, "Do you own any real-estate?","No", I replied.

"Have you ever owned any real-estate?" he asked, "Yes" I said.

"What happened to it?", "We sold it in 2004" I answered.

"What happened to the proceeds?" he asked, "There was none", I replied. (We sold the house at a loss).

He flipped through our file, signed the last page and let us go. The entire thing lasted about 3 minutes. We still had about 45 minutes in the parking meter when we got to the car.

"So what now?" I thought. Later that day Jenni called our attorney and asked what happens now, she said "Hopefully nothing". The creditors/court has 60 days to file any appeals or bring up any issues. Within the next 60 days we should receive a letter from the court that will state that our bankruptcy is final.

I guess we have to wait some more. I can't wait till I can start rebuilding our credit.