Preparing Your Petition

The first step, filing, can be tedious, but it’s necessary. To file for bankruptcy protection, you must make a full and complete disclosure of your assets and liabilities. This means you’ll have to sift through bank statements, pay stubs, tax records and bills. Yes, we realize many of our clients have stopped opening these pieces of mail or might have thrown them away, but we cannot proceed without a full and complete disclosure of your financial position.

You cannot neglect to list an item because you don’t think it has value or because you didn’t want someone to know about a particular creditor. Everything must be disclosed.

If you are not going to make a full disclosure, then you should not consider filing for bankruptcy. You can wind up losing the right to file bankruptcy, face heavy fines and possible jail time if the non-disclosure is significant.

Filing Fees

After the documentation and questionnaire has been returned to our office, we will begin preparing the bankruptcy petition and schedules.  At the time of this writing, get ready to pay $299.00 to the Clerk of the US Bankruptcy Court for the privilege of filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The attorney’s fee begins at $799 for  Chapter 7 bankruptcy and from $1999 for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy depending on the complexity of your situation.

Prior to the petition being filed, the debtor is required to take a credit counseling class. Our firm works with credit counseling providers to assist clients complete this requirement, which can be completed online or over the telephone.You will also need to put approximately $100.00 to the side for a pre-filing credit counseling briefing and a post-filing personal financial management education course.