To file bankrup

Managing Your Debt Bankruptcy. Part of. What Is Bankruptcy Overview Background. Bankruptcy Types. What Comes Next? Table of Contents Expand. Table of Contents. Chapter 7 vs. Chapter Bankruptcy Filing Costs. Installment Payments and Waivers. Required Credit Counseling Costs. Attorney Fees. By LaToya Irby. LaToya Irby is a credit expert who has been covering credit and debt management for The Balance for more than a dozen years.

Learn about our editorial policies. Reviewed by Khadija Khartit. Khadija Khartit is a strategy, investment, and funding expert, and an educator of fintech and strategic finance in top universities. After all, it's not a simple, easy cure-all for out-of-control debt. You can go bankrupt in one of two main ways. The more common route is to voluntarily file for bankruptcy. The second way is for creditors to ask the court to order a person bankrupt. There are several ways to file bankruptcy , each with pros and cons.

You may want to consult a lawyer before proceeding so you can figure out the best fit for your circumstances. There are lots of reasons people file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. You're probably not the only one, whatever your reason is. Some common reasons for filing for bankruptcy are unemployment, large medical expenses, seriously overextended credit, and marital problems.

Chapter 7 is sometimes referred to as a "straight bankruptcy. The cash from your assets is distributed to creditors like banks and credit card companies. Within four months, you will receive a notice of discharge. The record of your bankruptcy will stay on your credit report for ten years. But even that doesn't have to mean doom. Lots of Chapter 7 filers have bought homes with recent bankruptcies on their record.

For many people, Chapter 7 offers a quick, fresh start. But Chapter 7 bankruptcies aren't right for everyone. Almost all assets are taken and sold to repay creditors. If a debtor owns a company, a family home, or any other personal assets which he or she wants to keep, Chapter 7 may not be the best option. For people who have property they want to keep, filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy may be the better choice.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy is also known as a reorganization bankruptcy. Chapter13 enables people to pay off their debts over a period of three to five years. For individuals who have consistent, predictable annual income, Chapter 13 offers a grace period. Any debts remaining at the end of the grace period are discharged. Once the bankruptcy is approved by the court, creditors must stop contacting the debtor. According to Hoorfar, a lawyer can help you in the following ways. When looking for a lawyer, Wesley M.

Do you feel welcomed and informed? If not, trust your gut and interview other lawyers. This will be known as Schedule One, so make sure to include any liens against the property. This includes jewelry, collectibles, stocks, retirement savings, and household goods. Make certain to include the value of each piece so the court is aware of the total value of your assets. As soon as you decide to file for bankruptcy, go ahead and consider your accounts frozen. While it may be a well-intentioned gesture, it will only lead to headaches.

Transferring an asset within two years of filing the bankruptcy for no value is considered a fraudulent transfer. Again, best to consult with a quality bankruptcy lawyer before doing anything. If they are, you sign them. Upon filing of the bankruptcy schedules you have invoked an injunction against most creditor collection activity; in other words, they must stop all collection activity.

The purpose of the hearing is to confirm your schedules are true, correct, and complete. If you have a lawyer, they will do the legwork for you after collecting the required information from you. If you don't think you can afford a lawyer, but do think you could use some help with this part of the process, you should see if you are eligible for help from Upsolve.

It's important for everyone filing bankruptcy in Arkansas to be thorough in filling out the bankruptcy forms, as you only get one chance to tell your story. If you leave out one piece of information, possibly by accident, your trustee and the court may wonder if you are leaving out any other information, and thus intensify their review of your case.

If your income is low enough to make you eligible for a fee waiver, and you don't have the ability to pay the fee over time after your case has been filed, you should prepare this application for a fee waiver.

Making payments on the court filing fee after your case is filed is another option for folks who can't afford to pay the filing fee all at once but have to move forward with filing bankruptcy in Arkansas right away.

If this is the situation you find yourself in, prepare this application to pay the fee in installments after your case is filed. Keep in mind, however, that a single missed payment may cause your Arkansas bankruptcy case to be thrown out of court. If you can wait, it's better to collect the full fee first, then bring it to the court in cash exact change or as a money order when you go to the courthouse to file your forms.

This part of the process, while not difficult, can be a bit of an ordeal, especially if you saved all the forms you need to file your Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Arkansas as separate files on your computer. This is because by the time they are printed out, all the official forms look very similar, making it easy to confuse one form for another. If you do not have a printer at home, you should visit a store dealing in paper goods, such as the Office Depot to get everything printed.

Even though fling bankruptcy in Arkansas is an official court proceeding, the papers are not legal sized. Instead, everything is printed on standard, white, 8. If it is not too expensive to do so, you should print or make a second copy of everything you will be handing to the court. This gives you something to refer back to later on in the process, without having to worry about whether any of the information was changed since your filing. Since only lawyers are able to file Arkansas bankruptcy cases electronically, you will have to either mail everything to the court or go there in person.

It is recommended that you take the time to travel to the courthouse and hand your forms in in person. This will help you avoid a delay due to the time of mailing and gives you the opportunity to correct any errors or address any issues right away.

It's best to have everything neatly organized in one filing package that you can hand to the clerk when you get there. Folks filing bankruptcy in Arkansas can do so at the court in either Little Rock or Fayetteville , though you should only plan on going to the Fayetteville location if your case will be assigned to either the Fayetteville, Harrison, Fort Smith or Hot Springs Division, which is determined by where you live.

Either way, you will be entering a federal building, so be prepared to go through a security check on the way in. Once your Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Arkansas is filed with the court, a trustee will be assigned to administer or handle your case. The trustee is not a judge or anyone's lawyer though they often are lawyers in addition to being trustees but an independent third party neutral whose job it is to make sure everything is done according to Arkansas bankruptcy laws and procedures.

One of the trustee's primary responsibilities is to make sure that the information you disclosed in your bankruptcy documents is truthful and complete. Another part of their job is to review your income information, specifically your tax returns and recent paystubs. It is your responsibility to make sure that these documents are mailed to the trustee assigned to your case so they receive it at least 7 days before your creditors' meeting.

You may actually receive a letter from the trustee reminding you about this requirement and asking you to send in additional documents the trustee wants to review for your case. Everyone filing Chapter 7 in Arkansas has a duty to cooperate with their trustee, so it's important to start your case off by providing the information to them in a timely manner, thereby demonstrating your intent to cooperate in an orderly administration of your case.

Before filing bankruptcy in Arkansas, you took a course on credit counseling. This was required for you to be able to file your Arkansas bankruptcy case in the first place. Now that your case is filed, you have to take bankruptcy course 2 before the court can enter your discharge. The discharge order is the order that tells all of your creditors they can't try to collect from you anymore - the very reason why folks end up filing bankruptcy in Arkansas.