When you first realize the boulder coming down the hill is going to run you over. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard clients say, “I just wished I had not waited so long to file.” Personally, I think human beings are far too rough on themselves. We wait far too long before we reach out for help. I think our pride and our vanity gets in the way of taking medicine we often need to take to cure the illness faster. After all, when your finances are sick, isn’t that what you are supposed to do? Find the medicine to cure the ailment and take it? That way, you can move on faster with your life.

The other day, I had a caller ask me is there such a thing as a COVID 19 bankruptcy? I said that is interesting question and the answer is yes and no. No, there is no specific bankruptcy called COVID 19 bankruptcy but yes there are plenty of bankruptcies that are the direct result of COVID 19. It is the same thing as when someone asked about whether there is a bankruptcy dedicated to just medical bills, you know, like a medical bankruptcy. The answer is the same. No, there is no such thing as a medical bankruptcy but medical bills cause a lot of bankruptcies.

Bankruptcy requires extensive financial disclosure. All debts are listed in your bankruptcy and as well as all of your assets. Even the debts on secured property and the non-dischargeable debts are listed in your bankruptcy. 

how much does it Cost to File chapter 7 Bankruptcy?

Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy can provide significant relief from overwhelming debt, but it does come with certain costs. If you're struggling with overwhelming debt, you may be wondering how much does it cost to file chapter 7 bankruptcy?

There are limits on how often you can receive a discharge in a bankruptcy.  The discharge is where the debtor is released from the liability on their unsecured debts.  

This is an excellent question. There are misconceptions out there about what a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is and how it works. Many people mistakenly think that when you file a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, and make payments back to your creditors, you are paying all your debt in full. In the vast majority of cases this is not true.

 A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is a government sponsored debt consolidation program. It is government sponsored debt consolidation program because it is contained under Title 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Built into federal law is a government sponsored debt consolidation program that can be used by many Americans as a tool to get a handle on their debt problem.

 Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy are like different sides of a coin. They are as different as night and day. When most people think about bankruptcy they think about Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. And a lot of people are confused about what a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is, and is not.

A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is a bankruptcy where you do not make payments back to your creditors. Your liability for your debt goes away and you don’t make any payments back to your creditors. You say, well what’s the catch because this sounds too good to be true? There really isn’t a catch but the focus in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is on your assets. If your assets are all “exempt” that means they cannot be taken by a Chapter 7 trustee and used to satisfy your debts. At the end of a 4 month process, whatever debts don’t get paid off, get wiped out, tax free. The vast majority of Chapter 7 Bankruptcies work just like stated.

A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is a bankruptcy where your liability on your debts goes away and you do not make payments back to your creditors. Instead, the focus is on your assets not your income. With assets, the question is, are all your assets protected or are some of them not protected and you will lose. Most people who file bankruptcy in St. Cloud, Minnesota have no assets to lose. In other words, all the assets they own they get to keep.

Once you made the decision to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, you want to know how long does this process of filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy take. The answer is approximately 4 months from the time you file the Chapter 7 Bankruptcy until the time you receive your Chapter 7 Bankruptcy discharge. But that is the 2000 foot view of the overall process.

You have decided that it is time to end the nightmare staring at you in the form of debt. You summoned the courage and now you want to plow forward. What do you do now? How do you actually file a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy? This is a great question and one has to use a lot of caution here.

A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy has often been referred to as a “fresh start” bankruptcy or like hitting a “reset” button. The reason for this is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy you do not make payments back to your creditors. Instead, your liability on those debts gets “discharged” and the creditor can no longer collect on those debts, forever.

At Kain & Scott, we pride ourselves on being able to file a bankruptcy case as quick as any other firm in the country, but the reality is that for many situations, you do not have to rush to file for bankruptcy relief. The decision of “when should you file bankruptcy” can be as important as the question “should I file for bankruptcy” in the first place. This is why it helps to go over your most-important concerns the first time you speak with an attorney to set a timeline.

This question is very simple, yet infinitely complicated, and where the law is grey a bankruptcy judge or jury will decide if any of your debts will survive a bankruptcy filing. It is 11 U.S.C. § 523 (see https://kainscott.com/us-bankruptcy-code/chapter-v/ss-ii/code-523) which states which debts will be excepted from discharge, but unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation out there on the internet about what debts you may get rid of (ie discharge) in a bankruptcy filing. The term is called “excepted” because the default rule is everything gets discharged unless there is an exception.

Filing bankruptcy creates a public record of your request for relief, but it does not mean the general public can search and look-up all the information in your bankruptcy filing. In order to look up the information in a bankruptcy, you need an account in the government’s PACER system, and you are charged for searching through this database. So, while technically most of the information in the bankruptcy filing is public, your coworkers and employer often do not have to know about the bankruptcy filing.