A typical Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 petition requires you to submit well over 50 pages of documentation, including:
your schedules (which includes a detailed budget, a list of all creditors including addresses and account numbers, a detailed list of assets with estimated valuations, detailed information about sales, transfers, losses and recent payments to creditors, information about your and your spouse’s income over the past three years)
your plan (in a Chapter 13)
a credit counseling certificate
income documentation for the past six weeks
Even the most organized bankruptcy filers will need around a week to ten days to put all this information together. For those less organized, it can take longer.
What happens, then, if you need bankruptcy protection immediately, perhaps to stop a pending repossession, wage garnishment or foreclosure? In such an instance, the Bankruptcy Code does allow you to file an “emergency” petition consisting of only the first two pages of your petition and the credit counseling certificate.
You then have fifteen days to complete the remainder of the paperwork and get it filed.
However, there is one catch to filing bankruptcy which everyone considering such a filing should be aware—if you mess up your petition, you may end up with no court protection and could be barred from filing bankruptcy for up to seven years!!
That is why I do not recommend attempting to file alone. The Lancaster Law Firm takes a team approach to your bankruptcy action and we exercise due diligence to ensure that your petition is filed correctly and that you get the protection of the bankruptcy court.
If you are thinking about filing bankruptcy, contact The Lancaster Law Firm today.