One of the most important terms and concepts for debtors during bankruptcy is “automatic stay.” The automatic stay is a big old stop sign between you and your creditors. For either a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13, from the time of filing to the time of discharge the automatic stay stops creditors from collecting on your debts with them.

 A mandatory step during a bankruptcy filing is the completion of a U.S. Trustee certified credit counseling course. Many people worry about this –is it a test? A class they must attend? I have even had one client ask if the credit counseling is a punishment!

We’ve all seen or heard commercials advertising debt consolidation as the ideal way to escape financial difficulty. Have trouble paying your bills? Call us to fix all your problems! But while the actors in these commercials are overjoyed after one call, debt consolidation often is not a long term solution.

Even when you have all your ducks in a row, life tends to throw a goose in the mix. Our instinct is to panic or get angry but if this happens to you after you’ve filed you can be assured that we’ve got your back! Here are some of the most common post-filing obstacles that we can help with!

You’ve just completed your review & sign appointment. You’ve gone through your petition with a Kain & Scott attorney and verified all the schedules and information is true and correct. The I’s have been dotted; the t’s have been crossed. But we’re not quite done.

If you have ever had a credit card, loan, or a debt collection, you are likely to have a credit report. A credit report is one of the most important documents of your financial life. A credit report is a compilation of information about how much debt you’ve accumulated, how you pay your bills, where you live, where you work, whether you’ve filed bankruptcy or had a lawsuit judgment entered against you, and whether you’ve had a home foreclosed or vehicle possessed. If it sound like a credit report contains a lot of information, it does. An annual credit report can be over 100 pages long.

Many times the most frustrating (and counter-intuitive) part of bankruptcy is fees. I have to pay to file bankruptcy?! It feels like finding attorneys or law firms who aren’t trying to kick you when you are already down is a hell of a lot harder than it should be. Most firms bill you by the hour and demand a thousand dollars or more down up front before your case is even filed. Other firms will charge you for an initial consultation appointment. 50 bucks for them to tell you that you may not even qualify for a bankruptcy discharge?!

Clients often wonder how much they should dress up for their 341 meeting, also called the meeting of creditors. Though the meeting does not take place in court, meetings with the trustee are often held in a courthouse or other government building. Clients want to make sure they are making the right impression, which generally means dressing business casual.

In general, student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. The Bankruptcy Code prohibits the discharge of student loans in almost every instance. This boggles the mind given how burdensome student loan debt is to so many Americans, but student loans are not currently covered in bankruptcy.

When filing for bankruptcy, debtors are able to exempt certain assets from the bankruptcy. In other words, there are some assets a debtor can definitely keep in a bankruptcy, be it a home, car, personal belongings, or other property, up to a certain amount of value. In Minnesota, bankruptcy filers can choose to take state or federal exemptions, but not both. Depending on the asset, the state or the federal exemption will be more generous. The exemptions change periodically to adjust for inflation.

 Many people fear that filing bankruptcy means they will never be able to get a loan again—their credit will be ruined and they can kiss any future large purchases goodbye. Not so. Bankruptcy certainly affects credit, but the effects are not overwhelmingly dire, nor irreversible.

A discharge is a court order stating that a debtor is relieved of paying his or her debts. This is the aim of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy does not discharge every type of debt, however, so if you are having trouble paying any of the following debts, bankruptcy may not be right for you.

An important category of documents needed for a 341 meeting is bank statements. The trustee wants to see statements from any kind of account you had on the day you filed for bankruptcy, even if the account had zero dollars in it. The trustee needs statements from every account listed in the bankruptcy petition.

Four types of bankruptcy are available under federal law. They are each intended for different types of debtors and are outlined in Chapter 7, 11, 12, and 13 of the Bankruptcy Code.

There are countless hurdles in life that can push us into financial hardship and no one’s journey to and through bankruptcy is exactly the same. But there do tend to be unavoidable similarities in many cases: drop in income, the dissolution of a relationship, and medical debt are facts of life for many of our clients.

Judgments are issued when a creditor or debt collector takes you to court for the debt that you owe. A summons is sent to you and if you do not respond to that summons or if you lose the case, the court will issue a judgment in favor of the creditor.