Filing for bankruptcy protection provides you with benefits and costs. The benefits can include a fresh start to your financial life, and the costs may include a loss of some of your privacy. Although most of your personal and non-financial life details can be shielded from disclosure, your financial condition will be revealed to those interested in reading it.
Convenient Bankruptcy makes the bankruptcy process as convenient as possible. We handle almost all of our initial consultations through phone calls. If you want to learn more about bankruptcy, call us now at (405) 296-0067 or fill out a contact form, and we’ll contact you.
Bankruptcy is a financial safety net created by federal law for individuals, families, and businesses. It helps them start over financially if they’re overwhelmed by debt or other obligations by discharging some or all of them.
Different chapters in the bankruptcy code address how this protection works, how the filer benefits, and their obligations. Individuals may file because they suffer a job loss, health condition, or divorce and can’t pay their mortgage, medical, credit card, or car loan bills.
You need to understand the public nature of the process to decide whether filing for bankruptcy protection is right for you and your family.
The chapters in the federal bankruptcy code address different situations and obligations for the filer. For our clients, the most relevant are Chapters 7, 11, and 13.
Chapter 7: This process involves the bankruptcy trustee (the person in charge of your assets and debts) selling or liquidating your non-exempt assets (your home or car may be exempt from the process) to produce cash to pay as much as possible to your creditors. Some debts are nondischargeable, so you may still need to pay obligations like child support and alimony.
Chapter 11: This involves reorganizing a business that is heavily in debt but wants to remain in operation. The debtor files a reorganization plan with the court, which it may approve or disapprove (which means changes must be made). If approved (or confirmed), the business must repay some obligations while others are discharged. The company may be able to end leases and contracts, recover assets, and reduce its operations to become profitable.
Chapter 13: This is for individuals with regular incomes, and is primarily used by individuals who don’t qualify for Chapter 7, and individuals who want to stop a foreclosure of their home. Unlike Chapter 7, the person can their valuable assets (even if not exempt) and they can propose a plan to pay creditors over time (usually three to five years).
Bankruptcy law is highly technical. You and your creditors have legal rights, so the judge and trustee must balance the two. You’ll probably run a high risk of failure if you represent yourself in a bankruptcy proceeding.
A public record is information or a document possessed by a government entity that’s open to the public. Your bankruptcy case is filed in your jurisdiction’s US Bankruptcy Court. Like other court documents, your information is part of the public record.
Bankruptcy forms will contain your personal and financial information, including your address, income, debts, assets, a list of creditors, and how much you owe them. This information can be viewed through the PACER system (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), a federal court electronic case management and filing system.
Most PACER users seeking bankruptcy information are attorneys and their staff. Anyone can register for PACER for free, but fees are charged depending on how many documents are accessed.
PACER is a national website for the federal court system, and contains results for every federal courthouse in the United States. In order to find your case on PACER, the person searching would usually enter your bankruptcy case number or your social security number. It’s possible to search by name, but with a large national database, it’s just difficult to find cases without a case number or social security number.
No. Most people in Oklahoma go to the Oklahoma State Court Network, OSCN, to search for court filings. And while OSCN is a great tool for Oklahoma residents, it only includes cases filed at the state court level. Bankruptcies are filed at the federal courthouse, so they will never appear on OSCN.
These disclosures are required by bankruptcy law and regulations. The process needs to be open and transparent for it to work. In exchange for eliminating or reducing your financial obligations, you must comply with the applicable rules.
The bankruptcy trustee must rely on accurate information to do their job. The process is meant to be fair to creditors, who must know your assets, income, and other debts to determine their rights in your case and how to protect them.
Debtors must provide complete and accurate disclosures because they are critical to the foundation of the bankruptcy system. Withholding necessary information or submitting false information can result in your case’s dismissal, and you may face criminal charges.
The easiest way to think of it is this: you are required to disclose every single aspect of your financial life so that the bankruptcy court can verify that you’re broke. Broke people are great candidates for bankruptcy relief, but the court needs to verify your financial condition by reviewing all your income, assets, debts, and financial history.
Your financial information will be described to the court in a way that gives a complete financial disclosure, but also protects your privacy as much as possible.
For example, we have to list your family size, but do so by writing “Child, Age 12” instead of giving the child’s name and birthday. Similarly, we won’t reveal your pet names, but we will need to disclose that you have 3 dogs, a horse, and 2 cats. It’s a full and complete disclosure of your finances.
Although bankruptcies have lost most of their stigma over the years, you may be embarrassed that you can’t pay your debts. You also may not want your financial information to be open to the public because you fear it may harm your reputation or result in further financial problems caused by identity theft.
One of the biggest challenges with bankruptcy is that people never talk about their financial struggles. Your friend or neighbor may be struggling with debts or may have filed bankruptcy themselves - and you’ll never know about it, because they don’t want to talk about it. Financial struggles are real, and you don’t need to be embarrassed. Most Americans struggle with paying their debts far more than you would ever know, and you’re not alone!
The court will redact specific personal details from the public record, such as your social security number and your paystubs, and some specific documents may be sealed to make them unavailable to the public. However, the majority of your financial disclosures will be available online via PACER.
If bankruptcy is right for you, your family, or your business, set up a consultation with a bankruptcy attorney. One of our Oklahoma bankruptcy attorneys can answer your questions and provide you with a clear picture of your situation. Your Oklahoma bankruptcy lawyer can review your financial circumstances and suggest your best course of action.
Want to schedule a consultation and learn about your next steps? Convenient Bankruptcy is waiting to hear from you. Contact us online or call us at 405-296-0067 to schedule a talk.
At Convenient Bankruptcy, our dedicated team collaborates on every case, employing a comprehensive, team-based approach to ensure that each client receives prompt and top-notch assistance.When you engage the services of an Oklahoma Chapter 7 bankruptcy attorney from Convenient Bankruptcy, you can trust that they will meticulously prepare petitions and schedules outlining your income, debts, and assets for submission to the bankruptcy court. In this process, a bankruptcy trustee is appointed by the court to oversee your case. While the trustee's primary responsibility is to ensure the fair distribution of any available assets to creditors, it's noteworthy that most Chapter 7 filers retain... View full business profile here: Convenient Bankruptcy
