Chapter 7

Every state has exemption laws that allow you to keep some necessities, even if you do not pay your creditors. The idea is that it would do little good to take all of your assets because you would not have a place to live, clothes to wear or a way to get to work. Most exemption laws allow you to keep clothes, household goods, a car of some limited value, tools of trade, as well as other property. Some exemptions allow you to keep some equity in a house.

Most efforts by a creditor to collect a pre-petition debt (one that you owe as of the filing of your case) or to repossess your property without the permission of the bankruptcy court are violations of the automatic stay. If a creditor repossesses any property, such as your car, after you file for bankruptcy, the creditor must return the property to you.

You should notify your attorney and provide him or her with all the information necessary to complete the schedule (the amount of the debt, the type and value of any collateral, and the name and address of the creditor). This is very important, because if you do not list a debt on your schedules, that debt might not be discharged. That means you will be required to pay the debt in full after bankruptcy.

If an omitted creditor demands payment of the debt, you should inform the creditor of the bankruptcy, as discussed below.

Yes. You must list all your debts, with the name and address of the creditors. This is so creditors receive notice of the bankruptcy and get their fair share of any money paid to creditors. You may think that you should omit a creditor because you want to continue to pay the debt. This would violate the law, and it is unnecessary because you can always choose to pay a debt voluntarily, even though the debt has been discharged and there is no legal obligation to make payment. However, creditors are prohibited from taking any action to collect discharged debts.

Yes. You must provide the trustee and/or any creditor with copies of any federal tax return that you filed for the year prior to filing. If you do not comply with this request, the court may dismiss your bankruptcy case.

You must also file copies of any federal tax returns filed during the case with the bankruptcy court.

Any taxing authority may request dismissal of a bankruptcy case if you fail to file all required tax returns.

If you are filing a chapter 13 case, rather than a chapter 7, in addition to the documents mentioned above, you must file a plan that describes how much you will pay your creditors and over what time period. Your plan must provide that you pay creditors at least what they could have received in chapter 7 liquidation case, which basically means creditors must receive payments equal to the value of your non-exempt assets. Your lawyer will prepare your plan.

Chapter 7 cases are pretty simple for the most part. In most cases, you will attend one creditors' meeting and just wait for your discharge notice to come in the mail.

The bankruptcy Trustee runs the creditors' meeting, which is also called a 341 meeting (named after the section of the bankruptcy law that requires the meeting), and will question you under oath about all the information contained in your bankruptcy documents.

Your lawyer will prepare the forms that you must file in a chapter 7 case. To prepare those forms, your lawyer will need certain information from you. The information you should take with you to your lawyer is listed below.

Information to Take With You When Consulting a Bankruptcy Attorney

Today, you simply need to consider carefully whether bankruptcy is the right choice for you, and then gather the paperwork we talk about later in these FAQs.

Yes, you can file again, unless you have been in bankruptcy within the past six months and either: