good morning we’re here again to talk about bankruptcy I’m Brandi Austin and this is Seth cross with we’re from the Brandy Austin law firm and today we’re going to talk about bankruptcy questions that people have actually asked uh coming with and we’re going to try to make it fun so without further Ado I’ll be the first consult good morning good morning how are you good um okay so I’d like to file bankruptcy um but I do have this okay so that looks like a big box of money yeah I don’t
want to give it up okay where’d you get it well I am a stripper okay um that’s fine and uh so what we can do is put a classy one a classy one that’s that’s great um so the overriding rule that I have with bankruptcies is to be honest okay and we can deal with everything as long as we know what’s going on um now this big box of money is not exempt okay but you don’t want to get up so what we have to do is we have to plan all right and we can make this big box of money exempt but it’s going to take a
little bit of time and a little bit of doing we could you could open a 401k in Ira something for your retirement that’ll you know you can’t strip forever that’s true so um right so it’ll be it would be a good idea for you to probably open an IRA and uh or a 401k something like that then we could we could make that work in the bankruptcy okay so um I did pay taxes oh good but this is Trust Bank S I understand and you know bank accounts under Texas exemptions are not exempt anyway
now the trustee is going to give you some leeway for living expenses they’re not if you have 300 bucks in your bank account a thousand bucks in your bank account they’re not gonna they’re not going to do anything with that but if you’re if you’re looking at ten twelve thousand dollars then we’re going to have to do some planning I may or may not have a couple more boxes like this um so can I just put it all in a 401k or is it really like limits um there is a limit as far as how much
you can invest per year per year in a 401k that’s probably a question for an accountant that you need to ask but um yeah but you can definitely you can definitely uh start a 401k I’m not I don’t want to give you a figure because I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing okay so okay all right we’re going to go on to question number two so let me reset thank you good morning I brought some of my members of my household with me this is Elsa she’s a queen oh she is a queen um Anna she’s she’s a lot of work then
um this is Uncle Fester and this is um Captain Courageous so these uh the three girls um I’m actually responsible for them they live with me they’re not my children it’s fine and Uncle Fester he has some special needs he’s had him all his life um and different family members throughout are throughout his life have taken care of him and um I took him on this time um so none of them I’m not married to any of them and none of them um are my children but I do spend money on them and and those expenses have
really taken a toll especially the medical expenses and so I feel like it may be time to file bankruptcy but I you know if it’s it’s just me I’m unmarried no kids I just take care of my family sure so how will that work in bankruptcy so okay in bankruptcy we go by household membership okay that doesn’t mean necessarily that wife kids you know husband wife two kids it’s it’s every member of that’s living in your house okay so it can be your Uncle Fester it could be the three kids you’re raising
that are your sisters or whoever’s um and it could be the other person Captain Captain Courageous there um if they’re all living with you and you’re supporting them we can use them on your means test to uh depending on you know if if it’ll it’ll determine the median income for the means test um if any of them no if say Captain Courageous is working has a job part-time job actually Helping Hands non-profits that allows for special needs people to take on small small jobs to to give them sure
something to do and does he contribute any of that money to help the household well it’s minimum wage um so you know contribute to the household no but he doesn’t buy anything he buys his you know he’ll want food or a special treat or something like that and we always allow it okay so typically we’ll if if any of the members of the household are working it it also goes safe or if um if you’re married and you’re and all of your debt is before you were married and you wanted to file why it doesn’t do
her any good to file so you file Italy we’re going to need to declare all the income in the house okay um and if if Uncle Fester is contributing any kind of money to the to the um to the household expenses we need to declare that too it’s not really going to affect much but you know we’d have to declare everything okay um and so if he farted so he files taxes on his own each year does that affect the bankruptcy no okay it won’t it won’t the bankruptcy won’t affect anyone
that’s not filing we just have to disclose all the information okay um I also have a roommate okay um I don’t support the roommate um other than to provide a room and in exchange the roommate actually cleans the house okay um so it’s just a trade there’s no money exchange right um so how would that would that be a person in the household do you provide that person with food and that kind of thing or does she pay for them for yourself um she pays her own food and sometimes she’ll take some food out of the
refrigerator we’re not too picky right so again if she contributes any monetarily to the household we’d have to disclose that otherwise it it I mean we could counter as a member of the household yes okay okay all right well we are going to reset for number three hmm good morning goodbye um I love animals and um you know I I have taken it on to care for them for my life okay that’s my life’s work I brought an additional selection of animals that are really important to me I want you to understand you know what
it is that I do I provide food and shelter for some of these exotic animals and um so the cost of doing this is really taking a toll on my my finances because you know I I had um I had some credit card issues last year and I just haven’t been able to recover now these pets and taking care of them are my life’s calling so I don’t want to I don’t want to change that I don’t want to give it up but I am really drowning in debt and I need help now you said it’s your wife’s calling do you do you
make money off of this no I don’t allow anyone to you know come see them or pay for it there’s nothing there’s nothing they’re all they were all injured at some point or sick and I just took them on um just because I I just don’t feel like we should do tonight sure so you’re just basically they’re just basically your pets they are my pets okay now some are exotic and right costly we can we can exempt pets in the bankruptcy so you’re going to get to keep your pets
um as far as the costs go um we can we can deduct reasonable costs when we when we do your expenses we can we can use reasonable costs for pet care I mean it has to be reasonable we can have some salt water pets though okay and those salt water tank okay um is that something that could be reasonably um well we can accept it okay yes um now you know it we’re gonna look at the whole picture of course when we look at your your income and and it’s probably not if it makes a difference um now what do you do earlier
I’m a veterinarian okay so are you married I am okay any kids two two kids okay so what we do we will determine your income from that and then um then we would deduct the expenses if there’s if it’s questionable you know we have to use reasonable reasonable amount for for the pet care if it’s ten thousand dollars a month the trustee the trustee may look at that and say that’s not reasonable well I mean as a I’m not just a regular veterinarian I am help people who can’t usually afford veterinary care
so my fees aren’t as high and so I donate a lot of my time so kind of a pro bono vet yeah if you will yeah I do ask that they um they just pay what they can just because it does cost money for some of the the things that I use the medication sure well it probably the income and the expenses it shouldn’t be a problem but we’ll look at all of that and you’ll definitely get to keep your pets through the uh through the pet um through the pet um exemption so yes great I am so excited
okay we are going to go to our last and final set oh okay good morning good morning these are my babies they are not Larry okay okay only um do I uh have and these are just a selection I have a wide range but I also not just take these to the gun show I go to this gun show nice right okay so I’m a bodybuilder as well um so I have several questions several questions I cannot give up okay I only brought two but I have ten you have ten I have ten um and you know I this is my hobby that’s my hobby okay
um and I don’t want to give these out okay well you won’t have to now okay so and we’ll have to explain a little bit about Texas exemptions and federal exemptions because there are two different states now that doesn’t really help you because you have 10 guns um Federal exemptions have a wild card exemption that is a certain amount of money based on whether you’re married or buried or single and if we can determine how much the guns are worth then um yeah you’re terrifying me with that
thing um we can determine how much the guns are worth we could potentially exempt them using Federal exemptions if not then it’s going to take some bankruptcy planning and you may you know have have to sell them sell my guns yeah try selling the family and well you can but then we’d have to wait a period of time before we file the bankruptcy can I sell them to people who are the like family well they’re not family they are not so you can sell them to them not all blood is thicker right and then again we’d
have to wait a period of time before we file but we could with proper planning and proper execution well guns but we could we could make so on to bring these back away to the gun show okay um and when I do I sometimes win okay there is a prize I am sure I’m gonna get and I do not want to get better okay so there’s a rule in bankruptcy called the windfall Rule and it states that within six months of the data filing six months after the data filing within six months if you come into a a prize you win the lottery inheritance
something like that we need to disclose that to the court to the trustee you may not be able to keep it we’ll have to determine okay if we have enough if we have enough um exemptions to exempt it we’ll do that now if you get it prior to our filing you win it say next week and then we file in two months the proper planning again going back to um planning we can we can we can make that money so that you can keep that money okay now this planning that you keep talking about is that something I
can do on my own would you recommend absolutely you can do it on your own but I can I can assist you with you know giving you examples uh suggestions on what you can do okay so I can’t just you know you know open a new put it in there and call it planned no because the bank accounts again bank accounts in Texas are not exempt so that won’t work what if I go spend well then we’re going to still have the issue of having the guns that have to can I sell the gun can I pawn the guns and then go get them
negative you can’t do that the trustee will look at that and and and not not like that so I’m really gonna have to sell right eight of them right um and unless we can use the Wild Card exemption to tune yeah and depending on the value of the guns we might be able to do that now proper like full disclosure is important in bankruptcy okay so letting us know everything not hiding anything is is the most important thing you can do bankruptcy uh the the trustee the United States trustee falls under the
Department of Justice so they can put you in federal prison if you don’t disclose and if you don’t if we if we commit bankruptcy fraudible yeah we don’t want to we don’t want to commit any kind of fraud so we want to do everything the right way I must tell you I was hunting hunting and there is a civil case pending not a criminal it was just a complete accident um there is a civil case pending and you said full disclosure now now is that something that we’ll have to add we’ll
have to list it in the statement of financial affairs there’s a section for pending lawsuits so we’ll have to list that so if I get a judgment against me either way it doesn’t matter it can be if if if it is a dischargeable debt it can be discharged even though the Judgment comes later okay so because it’s pending because it’s pending and it listed it and you’ve listed it so it’s really important to just even if like I maybe rear-ended somebody it’s important to tell you all absolutely yeah so we
can so we can list everything and disclose everything um now there are with the debts sometimes something will pop up maybe a medical bill or something that wasn’t listed and what would happen in the past is attorneys would file a motion to reopen the case File the the debt and then and that costs 300 and takes the Court’s time the court was basically said any debt that was owed prior to the filing of the bankruptcy that’s non-dischargeable will be discharged even if it’s not listed as long as it’s
not listed was was an accident so all right we’ll get it discharged thank you thank you very much Seth those are our scenarios and as we’ve mentioned before it’s really important to consult with a bankruptcy attorney uh regarding your specific bankruptcy questions because there are so many different things that are in each person’s life and those can all affect bankruptcy in one way or another but with the proper planning and the proper guidance we can help you keep most of what you have or
at least try to keep most of what you have or find a reasonable solution that works for you so please give us a call at 817-841-9906 or visit us online at www.brandyaustinlaw.com Brandy like the wine Austin like the city law like what we’re doing here and we will see you next week for celebrity bankruptcies have a great day bye
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