Chapter 7 And Intellectual Property.

Question:
How is intellectual property handled in chapter 7 cases? I am filing ch 7 for personal bankruptcy. I have no assets but I do have creative work that could hopefully generate income from sale (book manuscript). I had my trustee's meeting and he asked to provide a list of which publishers I had sent my manuscript to in the chance that I make a sale within 180 days of dismissal the creditors could come after my advance. Unless I make a sale, of course, this has no cash value. This makes sense, but here's the weird part. My attorney also told me to provide a list of everything I have written whether I have solicited it or not and anything that I am working on now. I suppose this makes sense in that it could protect me when I publish. However... I was also told that the 180 day rule could be reinstated at any time if they feel I was hiding something. Now, if I put down "untitled novel" as one my projects and/or "untitled novel in progress" - according to the previous rule, the trustee could potentially come after me every time I publish, plus charge me with bankruptcy fraud (for not reporting it) for the rest of my life (though there is no way to prove which untitled work we refer to). Now, am I missing something, is my attorney missing something, both, neither, or have I gone nuts? Because the way I described it, it seems like I could be continually prosecuted for no reason. I have been trying to find ANY information on this and Im also not getting much info from my lawyer. PLEASE, any advice.

Answer:
The purpose of disclosing *everything* is to prevent just this sort of thing from happening. All of your assets must be disclosed to be administered by the Trustee; if they're not, then they remain the property of the Trustee. By telling him whatever you have, you then regain sole possession of them after the appropriate time period expires. Speak with your attorney for more details.





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