Whether you choose Chapter 13 or Chapter 7, filing for personal bankruptcy is broken down into some fundamental steps. First, you should consult with a bankruptcy attorney to discuss your rights and the procedures for filing bankruptcy. You may prefer not to use an attorney, however, his wealth of knowledge of all the rules, codes and laws, including HR 6851H and U.S, Bankruptcy Code Title 11 may well make it worth it for you to consider hiring one.

Your bankruptcy attorney will inform you that the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 requires all debtors to to be given credit counseling before they will be allowed to file bankruptcy. This credit counseling was made mandatory to make sure that people understood their options before going bankrupt and answer common questions about the bankruptcy process. Once you have received a certificate from an approved counseling program, you are ready to move on with your filing.

Now you must organize the documents to file the bankruptcy petition. These documents are quite extensive, and can easily involve hundreds of pages. Once the documents are complete, they must be filed with the U. S. District Court, Bankruptcy Division, in your area. At this time, you would pay a filing fee, usually around $200. If you cannot afford this fee, it can be waived if the proper forms are filed and approved by the court.

Once the Court accepts the filing, your creditors will receive a notice from the court advising of your filing. A meeting for the debtor and creditors will be scheduled by the court. This meeting is informally called a “341 meeting” because section 341 of the Bankruptcy Code requires that the debtor attend this meeting so that creditors can question the debtor about debts and property. Any of your creditors, who wish to question you about your debt, assets, etc., can appear at this meeting. If a creditor desires to make an objection to your filing bankruptcy, they will do it at this time, as well. In most cases, this is the only meeting that will occur for the majority of debtors.

A variation between filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy vs. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is as follows. If you file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, typically, within 60-90 days of filing bankruptcy, the court grants your discharge and you are formally released from having personal liability for any discharged debt. With Chapter 13, you are restructuring your payments with the aid of a court appointed Trustee; therefore you will have a new plan in place going forward.

This has been a basic review of the steps needed to file personal bankruptcy. Obviously there are many rules, codes and laws to be followed in the process. While one can certainly file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy on their own, you may be well served utilizing a bankruptcy attorney who is specially trained to work with clients and help them through this difficult time.