Laboring Over Bankruptcy Papers

Why is filing bankruptcy so much work? Paper, statements, tax returns, car contracts, pay stubs, appraisals, title reports, and credit counseling. It gets tedious fast. So, according to a certified Orange County bankruptcy lawyer, why is bankruptcy so complicated?

Here is the polite, professional answer, or the pointed, political answer.

Bankruptcy Bargain

Polite answer first: the bankruptcy bargain, your ideal with the legal system and your creditors, is disclosure in exchange for the discharge. Make full disclosure of what you have, what you owe, and what you have done with your money recently and you get a discharge.

You need to corporate with the trustee and live with the legal consequences of the mix of assets, exemptions, and avoidance powers. But the entire story honestly and you shed the dischargeable debts in your life.

Political Answer

The more opinionated answer is that filing bankruptcy is lots of work because Congress and the businesses who funded Congressmen a decade ago wanted to discourage bankruptcy. After all, creditors do not get everything they bargained for when a consumer discharges their debt. So big-money types did not want to let consumer off the hook through bankruptcy.

Some lawmakers believed that not paying your debts, regardless of the reason, was a moral failing. Do not want to make it easy to be immoral.

There is even a theory out there that a creditor goal in the new law was to extend the time necessary to prepare a bankruptcy case for a couple of months more, while folks kept making minimum payments. According to the practiced Riverside bankruptcy lawyers, minimum payments mean maximizing profits.

So, bankruptcy is hard work.

Client Lament

One of the clients just complained that to get his bankruptcy papers ready, the paralegal asked him for the same information the lawyer had asked him when they first met. It may seem like duplication to the client, but not to the attorney.

Being an attorney, he wanted to see the big picture for the client, the relationship between income, assets, and debts. He wanted to know what the client expects in his financial future. And what it is that brings them to the office today instead to last month or next year. What is going on that you made an appointment to talk with a business bankruptcy attorney in Orange County?

Having made a decision to file, the bankruptcy forms that the paralegal is drafting necessitate the story in fine detail, not broad strokes. How many payments left on the car loan? Is your retirement account ERISA qualified? Who else lived under your roof and do they pay for the privilege?

And on, and on.

Bankruptcy not hard

But at the end of the day, after BAPCPA, bankruptcy relief is still broadly available, it just takes a slog to get it done.

But on Labor Day, or any day, we honor hard work.

If you are also in search of a professional and experienced bankruptcy attorney in San Bernardino, feel free to get in touch with Sunita Sood at The Law Offices of Sood and Sood!