Just as with creditors, filing bankruptcy is an all or nothing proposition when it comes to listing what you own.  Sure, you’d like to keep your boat or your mother’s china, but not listing it isn’t the way to try to save it.  The basic premise of Chapter 7 is that you turn EVERYTHING over to the trustee.  If it’s exempt, you can keep it.  If not and if he wants to sell it, it gets sold.  That might make for some hard choices, but that’s reality in bankruptcy.

If you choose not to fully disclose what you own, you run the risk of having your discharge denied.  That means that the debts are still alive and will be even if you file another bankruptcy.  Once a debt has been determined to be non-dischargeable it is non-dischargeable forever more.  But even worse that not getting a discharge is the possibility that you could be prosecuted for bankruptcy fraud.  That, my friend, is a federal offense, tried in federal court.  If you’re convicted you face the prospect of going to a federal prison.  The good news is, for the most part federal prisons are much nicer than state prisons.  They’re still prison, however.  You’re still behind bars and your family can only visit you during regular visiting hours.

It’s not worth it to try to hide property.  If you just can’t live without your boat then maybe you’ll have to live with the debts.  The old saying about not being able to have your cake and eat it too is true in bankruptcy as well as in most other aspects of life.