What if I Accidentally Leave a Creditor Off of My Bankruptcy?

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Under the stress of a bankruptcy filing, there are times when a creditor is inadvertently forgotten and left off of a bankruptcy filing. If you file Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13 bankruptcy and realize that you accidentally left a creditor off of your bankruptcy, it may not be too late.

Bills in MailboxIf you realize before your creditors’ meeting that you have omitted a creditor, you will need to contact your attorney immediately. Generally speaking, you can add a creditor before your creditors’ meeting. Your attorney may charge a small fee and the court will charge a filing fee, but for most debtors these fees are insignificant compared to the amount owed to the omitted creditor. Your attorney will also send out the proper notices to the omitted creditor after the creditor has been added to the bankruptcy filing.

If you realize after your creditors’ meeting that you have omitted a creditor, there are more strict time limitations to adding a creditor and you will need to contact your attorney immediately to determine whether or not the time frame for you to add a creditor has lapsed.

The most important way to avoid accidentally omitting a creditor from your bankruptcy prior to the filing of your petition is to double-check your credit report from each of the three main credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian (visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com to get your free credit report). You will also want to double-check your bills from your creditors to make sure that you have included all of your debts on your bankruptcy petition.

Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy – Pay Your Bills (Step #4)

I’m sure you never thought this would be the case but this is the easiest step of them all. If you’ve followed the three steps before this you should have cleaned up your credit report, spent a year laying the foundation for your new credit with a secured credit card and now you should have obtained a reasonable unsecured credit card.

Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy in 6 Steps (Step #3)

After you’ve spent time laying the foundation for your new credit by using a secured credit card you will want to begin looking for an unsecured credit card. An unsecured credit card is a card where you do not put up collateral (cash, automobiles, etc.) as an assurance that you will pay. We typically recommend that you use a secured credit card for at least one year before moving on to an unsecured card.

Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy: Secured Credit Card

After your credit report is accurate you are ready to look for a secured credit card. A secured credit card is a credit card where a balance of money has already been posted. For example, most secured credit cards will require you to put up anywhere between $300 and $500. After doing this, you have a credit limit of the amount that you put up. I know, its not what you are used to in your pre-bankruptcy days but that’s okay. We are in a rebuilding period now.

Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy in 6 Steps (Step #1)

Anyone who tells you that bankruptcy won’t hurt your credit is lying to you. Bankruptcy will hurt your credit initially. However, if you are interested in filing bankruptcy your credit is probably already damaged quite a bit or is well on its way to being damaged. One of the nice things about bankruptcy is it allows you to hit the “refresh” button to start over. The question on whether a bankruptcy will hurt my credit is an easy one to answer. Yes. The more important question we should really be asking is: Can you rebuild your credit after filing bankruptcy and, if so, how? Yes, you can rebuild your credit after filing bankruptcy.

Should I Get a Credit Report Before I File Bankruptcy?

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Although, it’s important to keep statements that you receive in the mail regarding your debts, you should also consider obtaining a credit report.

For many people, it is difficult to remember original creditors, collections agencies, amounts owed, and so on from years past.  A credit report is a great way to visually see all of your debts listed out for you, especially if you did not keep statements.  Our recommendation would be to look at your statements first, then back it up with a credit report.  For many people, this will cover your bases in regards to who you owe, but remember this does not guarantee to be all of your creditors.  This is why it’s important to keep up with your statements and also view your free credit report yearly.  By doing this, it allows you to see whom you owe, if it’s accurate, and when and where the debt was incurred.

You are entitled to a free credit report every 12 months from www.AnnualCreditReport.com. It is one of the only legitimately free places to obtain a credit report. It will not, however, give you your actual credit score. Use this website, if you have not already done so in the past 12 months, to view your debts and names of your creditors.  We recommend checking this annually so you can be sure the creditors on your report are accurate.  When filing bankruptcy, it is essential that all of your creditors are listed, so be sure to use both statements and a credit report to back up what you already know regarding your debt.

It’s also a good idea to be sure you get your free credit report again a few months after you file bankruptcy. It will help you rebuild your credit after bankruptcy.

Can I Go to Jail If I Do Not Pay My Debts?

These are common questions that many people have about bankruptcy. In an effort to provide you with information we have provided these frequent questions. However, it is important to realize that each state has different rules and these answers are not meant to be legal advice. Contact a bankruptcy attorney to learn more.

Can I Keep My Credit Cards After Bankruptcy?


Now I know most people will look at this question like, “why in the world would I want to keep my cards if I’m eliminating my debt?!”  But occasionally, you will have one company in which you are still in good standing and will want to keep that card in hopes of somewhat holding on to what bit of credit that you have left.  It’s just not as simple as that.

Have you ever been in a wreck?  The next few days following the wreck, you will be bombarded with advertisements from attorneys claiming that they can help you in whatever service you may need from being in the accident.  Many wonder how they even knew about the wreck in the first place!  Well filing bankruptcy is a similar situation, once you file it is public knowledge and your creditors, whether they were included in the bankruptcy or not, will likely find out about the bankruptcy and will cut the usage of your account off. Most creditors’ fear violating the bankruptcy’s automatic stay so they will discontinue usage of the credit card.  So in the situation of a credit card in which you wish to keep, you may have never missed a payment and have been in good standing and they will still cut the usage of the card off, which is why we recommend that you list ALL of your debts.

Should you wish to try to keep a credit card out of the bankruptcy and wish to continue making the payment, then you need to contact that credit card company and give them a heads up on what your intentions are and ask for permission to have that card be kept out of the bankruptcy filing.  It will be completely and solely the discretion of the company whether or not they allow you to keep the card out of the bankruptcy and continue to make the payments, and report the standing to the credit reporting agencies.

If you don’t list down a credit card, with the hopes of keeping it, and then after filing the bankruptcy they shut it down anyways, you are still responsible for the debt. For example, if you have a Visa credit card with Wal-Mart and you talk with Visa and explain you are filing bankruptcy and they say they will allow you to keep the card but, after filing, they still shut it down, you are responsible for any remaining balance on the card. You may still be able to go back and amend the bankruptcy after the credit card company refuses to allow you to keep the card but there will be court costs involved in amending the bankruptcy.

Again, we always encourage our clients to list down all of their debts. You can rebuild your credit after bankruptcy and in order to get your fresh financial start it usually means wiping out all of your debts.