Bankruptcy -- How To File Your Case

So you have decided that there is nothing you can do about your financial dilemma except filing bankruptcy. I hope you have
assessed your position and have figured how much of the debt
is dischargeable. At the very beginning, where creditors have started to knock on your door, repossessions and foreclosure are imminent; you can consider an emergency filing.

This will get you an automatic stay which will stop all the
creditors from taking any action against you before the bankruptcy
case reaches the bankruptcy judge.

Bankruptcy Emergency Filing

The emergency filing, unlike bankruptcy filing, will contain a single piece of paper that lists all of your creditors. Now you have 14 days afterwards to file the complete petition or the case gets dropped. A court statement of pending bankruptcy is sent to all of your creditors and this stops them from any further collection action. A creditor here usually asks to lift the stay so that he can continue to collect the debts. This stay will be lifted only if a landlord has evicted you from his rented house. If you rented on long term lease then that is considered as an asset and the stay will prevail.

Bankruptcy -- Hiring an Attorney or fighting your own case?

Once the court has provided you a stay, you have ample time to devise a strategy for your bankruptcy filing. Here you have two options. You can either hire an attorney or you can do it yourself.



Attorneys are expensive to prepare your case. If you have a large property or
you are moving your assets from non-exempt to exempt
assets or your creditors are trying to make your debts
non-dischargeable or any other complication then hiring a bankruptcy attorney
is valuable. Shop around, ask a lot of questions before deciding which attorney
you are going to hire.



If your case is simple and your pocket does not allow you to afford an attorney, you can do it yourself. There are several sources available like, books, typing services, consumer bankruptcy manuals, legal libraries and guides devoted to bankruptcy that will help you to make your own case.



Either way, when you have your case written on paper its time to start the formal work of filing bankruptcy.