You may assume that the hardest part of your bankruptcy case is preparing the petition. However, you may be expected to be an active participant in your case proceedings throughout, meaning you must behave and act in a certain way at all times. In other words, you do not want to do anything that may jeopardize your opportunity to obtain financial relief at the case’s close. With that to consider, please continue reading to learn what you cannot do after submitting your bankruptcy petition and how an experienced Rockland County Chapter 7 bankruptcy attorney at The Law Offices of Allen A. Kolber, Esq., P.C. can help curb these potential errors.
What can I not do after filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy?
In addition to filing an initial Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition with the New York State Bankruptcy Court, you may be expected to supply a bankruptcy schedule, statement of financial affairs, and all other relevant financial documents. With this, you must not fail to file these documents, or otherwise complete them incorrectly. At the same time, if there is a significant shift to your financial situation during your case proceedings, which may be reflected in these financial documents, you must not fail to provide your appointed bankruptcy trustee with these updated versions.
Lastly, at the very end of your case proceedings, the court may order you to attend a debtor education course. In this course, you may learn valuable insights, generally about responsible financial handling practices to avoid falling back into debt that has you file for bankruptcy once more. You must not fail to attend these scheduled sessions, because then you will not receive a certificate of competition.
What happens if I am found making any of these mistakes?
First of all, if your bankruptcy trustee or the New York State Bankruptcy Court unearths that there are missing or outdated financial documents from your case, they may jump to the conclusion that you are committing bankruptcy fraud. That is, they may believe that you intentionally hid assets that your trustee would have otherwise taken, liquidated, and used to pay off your outstanding creditors. With this, they may dismiss your case effective immediately. What’s worse, though, they may impose criminal charges and hefty fines against you.
Secondly, if you are unable to produce a certificate of completion from your debtor education course, the court may decide not to issue your bankruptcy discharge. Meaning that you may be expected to pay off the outstanding debts that would have otherwise been eliminated from your immediate financial responsibility at your case’s close. Ultimately, this may make your financial situation not much better than when you started the bankruptcy process. Only now, you have a record of bankruptcy on your credit report for the next 10 years.
Before you take any further initiative with your Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, we urge you to consult a skilled Rockland County bankruptcy attorney. Most definitely, the team at The Law Offices of Allen A. Kolber, Esq., P.C. is eager to work with you.
