Avoiding charge of fraud
my cousin needs to declare bankruptcy. he is worried that he may have made some inappropriate transactions.
he took time off from work to go to school in France for nearly a year. he thought he would get money to pay off the debt from his father, but that won`t happen now. i think it was inappropriate for him to leave his job based on money that may or may not arrive in the future, but it`s too late to correct it now.
he is scared that he will go to jail because of the credit he used in the past year when he was off work. he just started a new job last week and can afford to pay part of the debt each month, but he doesn`t think that he has been on the job long enough for his creditors to accept a consumer proposal.
i have reason to be scared he might hurt himself if he is charged with fraud.
what happens if his creditors or his trustee consider his spending in the past year fraudulent? what could he do to avoid being charged with fraud? could he be undischarged for a longer amount of time than 9 months to help pay back more of the money? could he arrange to go bankrupt, but pay back the amount he spent in the past year? what would you suggest?
he would really like to pay back at least all the money he spent in the last year.
From the sounds of it your cousin should sit down with a local trustee and discuss exatly what has taken place. From the sounds of it I don’t think he needs to worry about fraud, but with just an overview it is difficult to make that call and realistically it is not up to the trustee to make that call but it is dependent on how the creditors view things.
So contact a local trustee and have them review things in detail. Once these details have been reviewed the trustee will be in a much better position to explain how they anticipate things would play out.