Personal Bankruptcy Laws

The new personal bankruptcy laws went into effect in 2005 making personal bankruptcy laws tougher than every before for people to seek personal bankruptcy protection under the Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy or Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy. Below are highlights of the personal bankruptcy laws.

Pre Bankruptcy Credit Counseling

The personal bankruptcy laws require anyone wanting to file for bankruptcy to get some credit counseling from an agency approved by the bankruptcy court within six months before filing personal bankruptcy. You can do this online or over the phone. After you have gone through the pre bankruptcy credit counseling, you must send the certification of completion of the credit counseling to the bankruptcy court as well as proofs that you acted on any plans the credit counseling agency recommended.

New personal bankruptcy laws call for more supporting evidence

With the new personal bankruptcy laws, more paperwork is needed to file bankruptcy. Tax returns as well as pay stubs, proofs of income, creditor communications, and much more. If you are filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you will need to file personal income and expense statement annually throughout the life of the Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy payment plan.

Re filing personal bankruptcy laws

If you file a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, the personal bankruptcy laws say that you cannot file another Chapter 7 bankruptcy for eight years. The personal bankruptcy laws for Chapter 13 bankruptcy is that you cannot get your debts discharged if you have:

• received a discharge in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the past four years.
• received a discharge in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the past two years.

There are other changes with the new bankruptcy laws. These new bankruptcy laws will be discussed further in other sections of this Bankruptcy Laws help website.