{"id":202,"date":"2012-07-27T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T06:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/?p=202"},"modified":"2021-05-04T23:23:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T23:23:26","slug":"where-should-or-can-my-bankruptcy-case-be-filed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/2012\/where-should-or-can-my-bankruptcy-case-be-filed\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Should or Can My Bankruptcy Case Be Filed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan C. Wood<\/a><\/p>\n

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. \u00a71408(1) your bankruptcy case should be filed in the district court for the district in which you live, own a home, have a business, or where your principal assets are in the United States for the 180 days prior to the filing of your bankruptcy case.\u00a0 The other option is to file in the district where you live, own a home, have a business, or where your principal assets are located in the United States for the longer period of time of the 180 days than any other district.\u00a0 Under 28 U.S.C. \u00a71408(2) you can also file in the district court for the district that there is already a bankruptcy case pending concerning your affiliate, general partner, or partnership.<\/p>\n

The purpose of this rule is to make it more convenient for you and your bankruptcy lawyer<\/a> to file bankruptcy in a district court that is close to where you live, own a house, conduct business, or assets.\u00a0 It would not make sense for you to file a bankruptcy case in a district court where you would have to drive several hours out of your way to attend a mandatory meeting of creditors or for a hearing in front of the judge.\u00a0 The other purpose of this rule is to discourage you from \u201cforum shopping.\u201d\u00a0 Forum shopping is where you choose the district court to file your bankruptcy case because you believe that district is better than another.\u00a0 It may be due to your belief that the judges or trustees are more lenient in that district.\u00a0 You may even want to file in a different state because that state\u2019s exemptions may be able to protect more of your assets.\u00a0 28 U.S.C. \u00a71408 is supposed prevent forum shopping.\u00a0 There are also other rules in play that would prevent you from filing in different states to use that state\u2019s exemptions.<\/p>\n

In California, there are 4 Federal Districts: Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southern.\u00a0 The Northern District includes the Bay Area and all the way up the western coast of California. The Eastern District includes a huge area from Chico to the north and Bakersfield to the south, and the northeastern and Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Central District includes the Los Angeles surrounding area.\u00a0 The Southern District covers San Diego surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

Our law practice is in the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California.\u00a0 Within the Northern District there are 4 different divisions: Oakland Division (Alameda and Contra Costa counties), San Francisco Division (San Mateo and San Francisco counties), San Jose Division (Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey counties), and Santa Rosa (Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties).<\/p>\n

To determine where you should file for bankruptcy the most common place to start is the county in which you live.\u00a0 Most consumer bankruptcy filers do not own a business that is located in a different county from they live.\u00a0 Also, most consumer bankruptcy filers do not have most of their assets located in a different county from where they live.\u00a0 You should consult a bankruptcy attorney<\/a> in your county regarding your filing options if you do own a business or have significant assets in places other than where you live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ryan C. Wood Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. \u00a71408(1) your bankruptcy case should be filed in the district court for the district in which you live, own a home, have a business, or where your principal assets are in the United States for the 180 days prior to the filing of your bankruptcy case.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1194,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}