St. Louis Bankruptcy Lawyers Blog

The primary situation in which someone loses an asset (like a car) through the bankruptcy process is when the asset has a great deal of equity. In other words, if the sale of your asset will result in a windfall, then it is possible that the Bankruptcy Trustee would wish to take possession of the item and sell it. But that is why it is so important to make sure that you hire a good St. Louis bankruptcy lawyer to help you through the process (to ensure that keep your assets).

ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY FEES $675

So how do you ensure that you keep your assets? First of all, it is important to note that the main job of the Trustee (the person who works for the government and administers your bankruptcy estate once your case is filed) is to find any assets you have that have a good deal of un-exempt equity. That could be a paid-in-full car, a bank account with a sizable amount of funds, or a pending personal injury suit.

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No, absolutely not. It is not necessary to inform your creditors beforehand of your plans to file a St. Louis bankruptcy. Of course, if you want to tell them beforehand, that’s up to you. But there is no obligation on your part to do so.

ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7 FEES START AT $675

When a bankruptcy is filed in the states of Missouri or Illinois, all creditors must be notified. So before you file, your St. Louis bankruptcy attorney will have you list out everyone that you owe money to (like credit cards, medical bills, payday loans, old utility companies, overdrawn bank accounts, etc.). In addition, your credit reports will be run to make sure that all creditors are accounted for. After the bankruptcy petition is filed, the court will mail out notifications to each creditor.

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Yes, they can. Especially if those prior judgements were civil suits filed by an unsecured creditor (like a credit card, medical bill, payday loan, or deficiency on an old apartment lease). All of that kind of debt is knocked out (even if the creditor has gotten a judgement against you in a lower court, and is currently garnishing your wages, or has a freeze on your bank account).

ONLY $675 TO FILE A ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY

So let’s say that you had a credit card that went long overdue, and the company sued you for breach of contract. They serve you with a summons, a court date is set, you don’t show, and a Default Judgment is rendered on behalf of the creditor. With this judgment in hand, the creditor files a Writ of Execution to your payroll department to begin garnishing your wages. And as a result, they begin deducting a full 25% of your net income (10% if you are able to claim Head-of-Household status).

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If you make “too much money,” then it may be that you will not qualify for a St. Louis Chapter 7 bankruptcy. But I purposefully put that phrase in quotes because even if it looks like you make too much on paper, there are still ways to get you into a Missouri Chapter 7. Let’s take a look at how the whole thing works:

When you file for bankruptcy, the court is interesting one primary piece of information: whether or not you are above or below the median income level. So let’s assume you are a household of three (you, your spouse, and one child). According to the government, the average (or median) income for a household of three is: $62,110 (as of May 2015). If your total household income is below this level (and you have not filed a Ch7 within the last eight (8) years), then you qualify for a Chapter 7. If your household income is substantially above that level, then you would have to file a St. Louis Chapter 13 (which is described as a repayment plan over the course of five (5) years, during which certain debts are paid back).

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$675 FOR A ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7

The short answer is: ten (10) years. But there is a longer answer to this question that most people don’t’ hear. In fact, as soon as they hear “ten years,” they want to run for the hills. But there is more to this question than you might think.

In October 2005, a revamp of the Federal Bankruptcy Code went into effect. This revamp was the result of a bill that passed in the US Congress earlier in the year. The changes that were made to the Code almost entirely benefited creditors. This of course makes sense (because if you are a multi-billion dollar corporation, you don’t have any problem hiring an army of lobbyists to persuade the government to give you what you want).

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$675 ATTORNEY FEES FOR A ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7

Many people mistakenly believe that the court can deny you the opportunity to file a St. Louis bankruptcy. This mistaken belief derives largely from the misinformation that creditors spread like butter on a piece of bread. But there are really only a couple of very specific situations in which the court would have anything to say about whether or not you should receive a discharge of your debts.

But before those specific situations are addressed, the garbage that passes for information given out by creditors warrants further discussion. Most of the big-name creditors (Bank of America, for example) won’t tell you too many blatant lies. But it’s the smaller operations (like payday loan companies, “buy-here-pay-here” car dealerships, signature loan companies, collection agencies, etc.) that will habitually feed you lies. For instance, they will tell you that if you do not pay the debt, the police will come and arrest you; that you will lose your right to vote; that you have to appear in court the next day. It’s all a bunch of lies. But those lies can be effective (because a lot of people get scared and cough up money they don’t have).

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$675 FOR ST LOUIS CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY

It depends on which kind of creditors you’re talking about, and which type of St. Louis bankruptcy you are filing. In some cases it is true that the creditor cannot be knocked out. But more often than not, it is an unsecured creditor that is giving out this kind of information (like a payday loan company, or a collection agency). And those entities will very frequently tell you things that completely and totally inaccurate.

For example, let’s say you have filed a St. Louis Chapter 7 bankruptcy. This kind of bankruptcy is commonly described as a discharge of unsecured debts (like credit cards, medical bills, old overdrawn bank accounts, etc.). The word “discharge” means exactly what you think it does. It means that those debts are knocked out forever (almost as if they never existed). Of course, there are in fact some debts that cannot be discharged. Examples of this would be most tax debt, back child support, and student loans. Or if you took out a credit card fraudulently (by using a false social security number), then that type of debt cannot be discharged either. And one more example would be if you made substantial transactions on a credit card just before filing for bankruptcy (like charging up thousands of dollars at Best Buy, and then turning around and quickly filing a bk).

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