.

- The meeting must be held not less than 20 or more than 40 days after the order for relief, on filing.

- Purpose of the meeting:

examination of debtor under oath,

election of a trustee or creditors committee,

meeting of equity and security holders.

 

2. Discharge and Reaffirmation Hearing

-most courts no longer have discharge hearings: The debtor gets discharged, with a fresh start. There is no need to keep the debtor involved in the other part of a bankruptcy, the administration of the estate for the benefit of the creditors.

-many courts no longer have reaffirmation hearings, but some do, and some do sometimes. A reaffirmation agreement is an agreement between the debtor and one of the creditors, usually secured, to reaffirm the debt. In the case of secured creditors (like financing the debtor's car) a reaffirmation means that there is a new debt, secured by the property. So, the debtor keeps the property and keeps on making payments. These agreements can be negotiated as to terms, and that's where attorneys can be helpful. If there is no attorney, the court gets involved with approving the reaffirmation.

 

3. Distribution of property of estate.

After the estate has been liquidated to cash, there is a hearing with notice to creditors. At the hearing, the judge reviews the trustee's report of fees, and any objections to creditor's claims. After the hearing, the trustee can distribute the assets among the creditors, priority claims first.

priority claims:

1. Administrative expenses

2. Claims for unpaid wages, salaries, commissions.

3. Claims for contributions to employee benefit plans

4. Farmer and fisherman claims.

5. Consumer deposits with the debtor.

6. Claims for unpaid alimony, maintenance and support.

7. Tax claims.

8. Claims based on FDIC or RTC insurance of deposits.

nonpriority claims:

If there is anything left after paying priority creditors, the remainder is distributed among the non-priority creditors in the following order, but only if there are assets remaining. There may also be a partial distribution of the remaining assets, within one of the groupings below, if necessary. Each member of the "class" of nonpriority creditors will get the same percentage of their claim.

1. timely filed claims and untimely filed claims where the creditor didn't received notice, where the proof of claim was filed in time to get payments.

2. Untimely filed claims where the creditor's failure is all their own.

3. penalty claims.

4. interest on prepetition claims.

5. debtor

4. Closing the Case

The trustee files a final report showing the distribution and asks to be discharged from the case.

After a Case is closed, it may be amended, to correct any clerical-type errors, without reopening it.

Reopening a case depends on the "sound discretion" of the judge. It probably will only be permitted if there are undiscovered assets to include.