What Should I do Before I File for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?

One of the things you should do before filing bankruptcy is take your credit counseling course. That’s one requirement for a bankruptcy filing. It’s a telephone course. It’s something that you can register for a nominal cost. It’s just listening to a recorded voice about debt credit and budgeting. It’s usually about an hour long. That’s one thing you have to do before filing your case.
Another thing you should consider doing prior to filing your case is gathering your financial documents, your pay stubs, your bank statements, your tax returns, all those things that you’re going to want to share with your attorney during the consultation or shortly after the consultation.
Consider opening a new bank account, if you have creditors, a lot of times people have creditors who are taking automatic payments out of their bank account, payday loans, or taking money out of the bank account. It’s good to take open up a new bank account so that those deductions aren’t happening anymore.
While you’re going ahead and proceeding with the bankruptcy filing. refer your collection calls to your attorney, this is probably the best thing you can do prior to filing your case, you don’t have to take those harassing phone calls anymore. Once you hire an attorney, refer those collection calls to your attorney. Once you have an attorney, they’re supposed to call the attorney. And if they don’t, then you let us know. And we’ll make sure that they don’t call you anymore. Ask your attorney any questions that you have and let them know if there’s a change in circumstances in your case.
That’s another thing that you’ll want to do. For example, if before filing your case, if you have a job loss or a change in jobs, or a change in circumstances, good or bad, you’re going to want to make sure that you let your attorney know because that’s something that could impact your case.
Another thing is you’re going to want to make sure that if you’re thinking about doing something prior to your bankruptcy filing, definitely call your attorney and talk to them about it before doing whatever you’re thinking about doing because it could have an impact on your case, it’s better to check with your attorney before actually taking that action.
I’d start the process sooner rather than later. That’s one of the things prior to filing your case. Jump on the process right away if you know that bankruptcy is inevitable because of your circumstances. It’s better to do it earlier than later because of garnishments bank attachments. You know, foreclosures, repossessions, all those things can be prevented by filing for personal bankruptcy and you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re where you need to file bankruptcy and your wages are being garnished 25% of every single paycheck because then it makes it hard to get to that next step of filing.