The Effect of Omitted Debt on Your Bankruptcy
Transcript:
Hi, Matt McArthur, bankruptcy attorney, Clear Counsel Law Group.
Today, I want to talk about omitted debts on your bankruptcy paperwork.
By omitted debt, what I really mean, is that when we file your bankruptcy case we have to compile a list of your creditors.
We create this list with their names, their addresses, the amounts of the debt, if we have account numbers, and when the debt was created, or came into existence.
We list all of this information for the bankruptcy court. By an omitted debt we mean a debt or an amount owed to a creditor that wasn't listed on this paperwork.
It was omitted. It was left off of the paperwork.
Will an Omitted Debt Preclude You From Getting a Discharge?
What happens to these omitted debts?
If we're in the middle of your bankruptcy case and your case is still pending, and we thought we got everybody at the beginning, but a bill came out of nowhere, or, you just remembered that old bill that you had before you moved states, and you wanted to make sure that they got included, it's not too late.
If we're in the middle of your bankruptcy case, the process involves amending the list that we've already created with the court, and so we provide that public notice, and we file that public document, and that public amendment, to your documents.
We also need to provide notice to the creditor that was omitted.
When we initially filed the list of your creditors, the bankruptcy court is going to mail out a notice of your bankruptcy to all of the listed creditors, and, because, this, particular creditor wasn't on that list from the beginning, they didn't receive that initial notice, so the two steps are making sure that the debt is listed in your bankruptcy forms and schedules, and, then, also, providing notice to the creditor, so that they know about their bankruptcy.
They can update their systems and they know to leave you alone.
It's a fairly straight-forward process, but it's something that needs to happen during the bankruptcy in order to make sure that we have it included and listed, and, it's very clear that it was an included debt, and it's included in the discharge.
If you have any concerns about what debts you owe, and whether or not we'll be able to do anything about that, I have a little bit of more information to provide you, beyond the scope of this video, so, please come in and visit with me, consultations are free.
I look forward to hearing from you soon, and we can delve into how best to get all these creditors included in your bankruptcy.
