How to File Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

The best way to file your chapter 7 bankruptcy is to have it done Full Service for you.

NOT online software!!!

Bankruptcy Law Explained

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

[You do not need to study bankruptcy laws or to review this section if you have chosen to have us prepare your bankruptcy for you.]

Index:

Bankruptcy Law Summary
Chapter 13 bankruptcy laws
Property and Exemptions
Structure of bankruptcy laws
Case administration
Types of bankruptcy
How to file bankruptcy
 

Overview - Personal and Business Chapter 7

Chapter 7 bankruptcy, also known as liquidation in the code and often referred to as straight bankruptcy, is the most common type of bankruptcy. When people generically refer to bankruptcy, they are most likely referring to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The purpose of Chapter 7 bankruptcy is to protect you the debtor from your creditors. If you are overburdened by debt, Chapter 7 bankruptcy is your friend, not your enemy. It is effective against a host of debts including credit cards and for this reason it is sometimes thought of as credit card bankruptcy.

The laws and rules governing personal and business Chapter 7 bankruptcies can be found in Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code, also know as Title 11 of the United States code. This chapter is divided into four subchapters. Subchapter 1 deals with the duties of the trustee as applied to a filing under Chapter 7, Subsection II deals with collection, liquidation and distribution of the bankrupt estate, Subchapter III deals with stockbroker liquidation and Subchapter IV deals with commodity broker liquidation.

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When a person files Chapter 7, their goal is to wipe out most if not all of their debts. You file under Chapter 7 if your debts are largely unsecured or if you want to wipe out most of your debts and never repay them again. If your debts are mostly loans or credit cards and judgments, you would most likely want to file Chapter 7. Imagine that for six months or more you have been suffering terribly under the heavy burden of debt and all of a sudden, all that load gets lifted off you and you are a free person. One person likened it to being declared not guilty after a long trial without bail. That is what debtors report experiencing when they file Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Subchapter II (Section 721 through 728) is of particular importance to debtors because it deals with your right to operate a business while in bankruptcy, redemption of property, rights of partnerships, treatment of certain liens, disposition of property, the discharge of debts and certain tax provisions.

The process starts with the preparation and filing of the documents. After that, a trustee is appointed to administer the bankrupt estate and to ensure the smooth and equitable application of the law. Approximately four weeks after the commencement of the chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the debtor appears for the meeting of the creditors. If the debtor does not have non-exempt assets, the discharge is issued about four months after the commencement of the case. If there are non-exempt assets the trustee is empowered by law to liquidate them and disburse the proceeds to the creditors.

From the debtor's point of view, the goal is to obtain the discharge which is essentially a court order declaring all of ones dischargeable debts discharged. Any debts that are discharged are never ever repaid by the debtor or by anyone else. Legally, it is as if the debtor never owed the debt. You can file Chapter 7 bankruptcy no sooner than every seven years, (eight years under the new bankruptcy laws) or more accurately, you cannot get a discharge any sooner than every eight years. The ability to discharge one's debts every six (or eight years under the new law) is crucial to the realization of personal liberty that is at the core of our democracy. It is also strikes a balance between the interests of big business, (the lenders) and the individuals who collectively make up this country.

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Essentials of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Anyone (person or corporation) can file chapter 7 bankruptcy but not every filer will obtain a discharge of debts. To obtain a discharge, the debtor must be insolvent. Insolvency is marked by inadequate disposable income to pay one's creditors. The requirement of insolvency ensures that the process is not abused and that only debtors who need to file bankruptcy do so.
Bankruptcy law requires that the moment you file bankruptcy, there is an automatic stay that prohibits virtually all creditors from initiating or continuing any efforts, legal or otherwise, to collect debts you owe or to seize property of the bankrupt estate. This is know as the Automatic Stay and is one of the most powerful of all Federal laws. This means that the moment you file, evictions, repossessions and foreclosures must stop, at least for a while; you cannot be sued and existing lawsuits must come to a halt; creditors and collection companies cannot harass you or enforce money judgments against you. Even the government itself cannot come after you for civil debts that you owe including income taxes.

When a personal bankruptcy is filed, a legal fiction know as the bankruptcy estate is created and it is comprised of all the property that the debtor owned at the time of the filing of the case. The bankruptcy trustee is appointed by the United States Department of Justice, is charged with administering the case and is given temporary control of the bankrupt estate.

There is a mandatory meeting that all debtors must attend and it is called the meeting of the creditors or the 341(a) hearing (since it is contained in Section 341a of the bankruptcy code) The bankruptcy trustee presides at this meeting which is held approximately 4 weeks after filing. If you fail to appear at the meeting of creditors, the court can and will dismiss your case.

You are allowed to amend any documents to correct any information or to add creditors or assets that were omitted in the initial filing. Also, you are allowed a maximum of 15 days to file any of the initial documents that you failed to file at the commencement of the case.

If you have secured debts such as a car payment or a mortgage, you can still file Chapter 7 and retain the collateral by continuing to make the payments as usual. You are under no obligation to surrender any securing property that you want to retain. You are in control and it is up to you to decide what you want to keep and what you want to surrender. There are several ways to retain a collateral depending on the nature of the debt. There is reaffirmation where you agree to continue making payments; there is redemption where you pay only the current market value of the collateral while wiping out the excess and there are various forms of lien avoidance where you obtain a court order converting the secured debt to an unsecured one, thereby wiping it out in the discharge.

Upon the recommendation of the trustee, the court orders the dischargeable debts discharged. These debts are usually the unsecured debts as well as secured debts where the debtor does not intend to retain the collateral after bankruptcy.

After the job of the trustee is finished, usually in about six months from the commencement of the case, your case will be closed. Closure of the case de-appoints the trustee and ends the automatic stay. You can reopen a closed case for any valid reason within 12 months of the closure by filing a motion with the court.

When you hire us for your bankruptcy, we provide you access to even more information on this topic including how you can keep assets that you did not think was possible.

You can hire a bankruptcy lawyer and pay lots of money to file your bankruptcy or you can file your bankruptcy online. Filing chapter 7 personal bankruptcy does not mean that you file it from your browser. It means that you can have us prepare all the personal bankruptcy forms from the convenience of your web browser.

We call it online personal bankruptcy because you submit your bankruptcy law information online and you receive back your completed personal bankruptcy law forms online. (Bankruptcy lawyers cannot handle your bankruptcy filing online.) But it does not stop there. Our personal bankruptcy is prepared full-service, not by personal bankruptcy software or by bankruptcy law kits.

The big problem with filing personal bankruptcy without a lawyer or a full-service company like ours is having all those forms prepared with all the complicated personal bankruptcy laws to consider. If you were to try to file a chapter 7 bankruptcy using do-it-yourself bankruptcy forms, you will be stopped by your lack of experience, and even if you have done this before, under the new bankruptcy laws, discharging your debts has become so much more complicated. Add to that the fact that the personal chapter 7 bankruptcy forms have almost doubled.

When filing personal bankruptcy online, you need list your debts and they may include credit cards, mortgages, medical bills, and more. In short the federal bankruptcy court wants to have a clear picture of your financial situation. If you have never filed personal bankruptcy before or if you cannot afford a bankruptcy lawyer, how are you going to know what to do? When answering the questions on the official bankruptcy forms how do you know if an answer you give will help or hurt? That is where we come in.

Also, chapter 7 bankruptcy law now requires you to use data taken from several government databases in order to show that you even qualify. This is referred to as the bankruptcy means test. When filing personal bankruptcy with our services, you do not need to worry about all the personal chapter 7 bankruptcy forms or all the bankruptcy laws required to discharge your debts and you do not need to pay a bankruptcy lawyer. You need to have us take your personal bankruptcy information and prepare the bankruptcy law forms without a bankruptcy lawyer so that all you need to do is sign your name and file.

Preparing your personal bankruptcy using bankruptcy software, including the so called "online bankruptcy software", is just plain uninformed when compared to having it done Full-Service for you by an expert or by an attorney if you can afford them.

With the added complexity of the new bankruptcy law, you cannot afford to chance it by using paper bankruptcy forms or even personal bankruptcy law software. First, if you have never filed personal bankruptcy before, it could take you weeks to get the paperwork together, but more importantly, if you mess it up seriously, the bankruptcy law court could order you to re-file in six months and by then you would be filing under the new laws.

You avoid the hassle and the waste of time when filing personal bankruptcy by having us prepare your professional quality chapter 7 personal bankruptcy today or hire a bankruptcy lawyer. When you file personal bankruptcy with us, there is no chance of its being kicked out or of your being asked to file again in six months. Our work is full service, not do it yourself.

It is tempting to use one of those $15 forms packages or the do-it-yourself bankruptcy software downloads or even an personal bankruptcy software system, but times have changed and these are not the good old days.

Take a look at the 87 questions of the 6 page means test alone and no one will have to convince you that you cannot do it yourself with forms or software kits. It can only be done by a full service company or by a bankruptcy lawyer.

We prepare 100% of everything you will need to for a chapter 7 bankruptcy
100% online without a bankruptcy lawyer in just one day or less

All you do is sign your name and file it.

Before You Start Filing Personal Bankruptcy and Before you select a Bankruptcy lawyer,  Compare And See Why We are Better

In any business, the best companies do not mind if you check out the competition first, because they know you will better appreciate their services if you have shopped around. The same applies with us.

If you insist on filing personal bankruptcy with a personal bankruptcy software then the best ones are Guaranteed Bankruptcy and Verant Bankruptcy. Filing online without bankruptcy lawyer with them is no where as easy as filing personal bankruptcy online with our service because we are full service and they are not.

They charge between $170 and $200 but that does not amount to much. Why? Because in the end, it is still only bankruptcy software and that means, do-it-alone.

You are not a personal bankruptcy expert, and no bankruptcy software is going to change that.

A better comparison for filing chapter 7 or chapter 13 bankruptcy online would be DebtorAid Personal Bankruptcy and Zmt Personal Bankruptcy Filing, the two most popular Full-Service online bankruptcy filing companies. You can decide to hire a bankruptcy lawyer.

We offer services similar to theirs but for a lot less.

We do not sell blank forms. We do not sell software. We do not sell kits. We do not sell templates.

Full Details

To learn more about filing bankruptcy online with our services, click any of the links below.

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