One thing that sometimes keeps people from moving forward with filing bankruptcy – and getting their financial life back on track – is that they don’t have a list of all of their creditors or their addresses. They’re concerned that the original creditor sold the debt to a debt collector and that they’ll never find who they owe the money to.
Generally speaking, debts that are not listed on your bankruptcy petition will not be discharged. What that means is that after you go through the bankruptcy process, you will owe any debt that you forgot to list. That is why I can not urge my clients enough to give me as much information about ALL of their debts as possible. It’s also why we run a credit report on all our clients.
The good news, though, is that your bankruptcy attorney can usually correct the problem.
First, the debt will be discharged, even if you forgot to list it, if the creditor receives actual notice of the bankruptcy from you or some other source in time for the creditor to file a proof of claim or file a nondischargeability complaint. There is also case law stating that if the filer didn’t have to turn over any assets or money to the bankruptcy trustee (a “no asset” case), any dischargeable debt that wasn’t listed on the petition will be discharged.
Nevertheless, it is probably a good idea to amend your schedule of creditors. Your attorney has about 90 days from the time your case got filed to file an amendment to the schedule of creditors. In Colorado, it’s going to cost you a small filing fee, plus whatever you attorney charges, to file that amendment.
In my experience, it’s rare for a significant creditor to be left off the petition because a client couldn’t find any information about it or it wasn’t on their credit report. I don’t think we’ve ever had to amend a petition to add a credit card account, for example. Usually, it’s a smaller creditor. Nine out of ten times, it’s a medical bill. Medical providers often don’t report debts to credit reporting agencies, so it doesn’t show up on credit reports. I’m guessing it’s not worth the time and money for them to report. Of course, we still want the client to make an attempt to give us information about all of his or her debts.
One last thing: if you intentionally leave a debt off your petition, you could be in trouble. Sometimes filer will leave off a debt owed to a friend, family member, or business partner. If you intentionally leave off the debt, the creditor could ask the court to exclude the debt from the bankruptcy or even have the entire bankruptcy case dismissed. That means all of the creditors will still be able to pursue the filer for their debts.
Adding A Creditor After Your Bankruptcy Is Filed
If you discover that you forgot to include a creditor, the best course of action is to talk your Denver, Colorado bankruptcy attorney as soon as possible. Although the answer can depend on what kind of debt was involved, it shouldn’t a problem to fix it.
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