Bankruptcy questions answered
How does the bankruptcy process work?
As soon as you bring me the paperwork that I requested I will prepare your bankruptcy petition. Once I have the paperwork ready, you will come in, review your petition and sign. After this is ready and your payment is complete I will file your petition online. For example, if your paperwork is ready and I file on June 15th 2010 then the trustee will look back for a period of 90 days prior to that, approximately March 15th through June 15th 2010. If during that time you have paid more than $600 to any single creditor you will need to report this on your petition. This does not have to do with using your credit cards, but it has to do with paying your credit card bill.
Also, it is bankruptcy fraud to continue using your credit card once you know you are filing bankruptcy.
Let’s say as an example you had a credit card for which you have been making payments of $300 each month in order to try to pay it off, then (as an example) March through June you would have paid the credit card company a total of $900. In this case, prior to the June 15th filing date you would have paid over $600 in the past 90 days and this needs to be reported on your bankruptcy.
When do we have to stop using the credit cards that we want included in the brankruptcy?
I would advise you to stop using credit cards as soon as you possibly can. More importantly as I have said above, you need to stop paying your credit card bills ASAP.
Do they literally look 90 days back from the filing date or is that more of a generalization?
No, it is not a generalization. But it refers to whether you actually paid any of your credit card balance in the past 90 days.
