Oops, I made a mistake

by Tim S

When filing a bankruptcy case it is important to list in your paperwork all the creditors that you owe money too. This is extremely important in order to provide proper notice to the people or entities that you have a financial obligation to so that they are aware that you have filed Bankruptcy and that they may take the appropriate actions. This also prevents any misunderstanding after your bankruptcy case is concluded as to your ability to be released from your financial obligation to your creditors. However, there are times when an individual may fail to list a creditor and that creditor does not get notified of the bankruptcy.>>Read more about the benefits of a bankruptcy attorney at http://www.bankruptcyhome.com/choosinganattorney.htm The policy that is best practiced when retaining an attorney to file bankruptcy is to make sure they run a credit report for you, pulled from all three credit bureaus in order to get a good list of all of your creditors. If the firm you retained does not regularly pull a credit report, it is best advised to pull one yourself. Although credit reports are extremely helpful in getting information on all of your creditors, they are not always reliable. This may be because not all creditors that you have, report to the credit bureaus, or may only report to a certain credit bureau. Therefore, it is also good to make sure you have all of your most recent bills that you incurred prior to your case being filed. This can help you catch any creditors that may not be on your credit report as well as allow you to cross-reference those that are on your credit report.What happens if you filed your case and still you find that not all of your creditors were listed? Simply, nothing. However, it is imperative that if you find a bill that was not included in your filing to make sure your attorney is aware of this so that he or she may file an amendment to your list of creditors to get them included so that they will be notified of your bankruptcy filing. There, unfortunately, will be a charge for this, since the fee to do so with the Court is generally $26.00. Therefore, if you find that you have more than one bill that was not included, it is a good idea to collect all of the bills and have them added at one time to only be charged the one-time fee of $26.00. Because, if you try to add creditors to your paperwork after the case is filed and you do it one at a time, you will be charged $26.00 for each correction.>>Read more about filing bankruptcy at http://www.bankruptcyhome.com/filing-bankruptcy.htmIf for some reason you never get a bill from a creditor and you fail to list their debt and after you bankruptcy case is concluded they claim that they never received notification of your bankruptcy filing, it is not the end of the world. Creditors may claim since they were never notified of the bankruptcy filing their debt cannot be discharged or rid of after the bankruptcy case is concluded. This is simply not true. A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2003 held that a bankruptcy discharges all debts that arose before a bankruptcy filing, even those not listed. Federal Communications Comm’n v. NetWave Personal Communications, 123 S.Ct. 832 (2003).However, there are nineteen (19) debts listed in the Bankruptcy Code under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a) that can never be discharged in a bankruptcy case regardless if you notified the creditor timely or not. Those that are most common are IRS taxes (with some exceptions), cash advances or charges on a credit card made within seventy (70) – ninety (90) days prior to filing the case if the amount charged or advanced exceeds $500.00 (also with some exceptions), child support or alimony, willful or malicious injury to property or another person, fine or penalty owed to a governmental unit, student loans, debt relating to death or injury caused operation of a vehicle (includes boats and airplanes), any debts denied a discharge in a previous bankruptcy filing, and any debt owed to a spouse or child relating to child support or alimony.It is important to understand is that you have an obligation to list all the people you owe money to when filing a bankruptcy case. However, we are all human and we do make mistakes. Therefore, if the omission of a creditor was by mistake, then there are methods to make sure that you can still receive a discharge in your bankruptcy case of that debt. As we all know "To err is human, to forgive divine."

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