{"id":33,"date":"2011-10-08T06:01:30","date_gmt":"2011-10-08T06:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2020-01-20T22:42:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T22:42:26","slug":"what-about-after-a-chapter-7-or-chapter-13-bankruptcy-discharge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/2011\/what-about-after-a-chapter-7-or-chapter-13-bankruptcy-discharge\/","title":{"rendered":"What About After a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Discharge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Once your debts are discharged in your bankruptcy case and the case is closed you would think that it is all over and you can start fresh.\u00a0 Well, that is in a perfect world and most of the time this is definitely true.\u00a0 However, once in a while, your creditors believe they have never heard of the bankruptcy code, your order of discharge and try to collect from you even after receiving your fresh start.\u00a0 So what do you do to protect yourself?<\/p>\n

Under 11 U.S.C. \u00a7727, all your dischargeable unsecured debts that were incurred prior to the filing of your Chapter 7 bankruptcy case are discharged, therefore you are no longer personally liable for those debts.\u00a0 Creditors are prohibited from collecting those debts from you after your order of discharge is signed and entered.\u00a0 All collection activities are prohibited, including but not limited to, contacting you by phone, sending collection letters to you, suing you, or continuing a lawsuit against you.\u00a0 You can always pay for the discharged debt if you wish to, but you are under no obligation to do so, and creditors cannot force you to do so.\u00a0 If creditors have a valid lien against you, however, they can still enforce those liens if those liens were not avoided in your bankruptcy case.\u00a0 Examples of valid liens are mortgage or vehicle liens.\u00a0 Some of the debts that are not dischargeable, however, are debts such as alimony\/child support, recent taxes owed, student loans, debts incurred fraudulently, and debts for personal injuries caused by the debtor when operating vehicles while intoxicated.\u00a0 These debts would still need to be paid by the debtor after the Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge.<\/p>\n

Under 11 U.S.C. \u00a71328, you will receive a discharge of all your dischargeable unsecured debts once you successfully complete your Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan.\u00a0 Similar to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the discharge applies to all your unsecured debts that were incurred prior to filing your bankruptcy case.\u00a0 Since creditors receive a percentage of your Chapter 13 plan payments, the only creditors you receive a discharge from are the ones scheduled in your Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition.\u00a0 The creditors that you inadvertently failed to disclose did not receive notice of your bankruptcy case, and thus you may not receive a discharge from those undisclosed debts.<\/p>\n

Once you receive a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy discharge, if creditors continue their prohibited collection activity against you, you need to notify them that you have already received a discharge of the debt they are trying to collect on.\u00a0 If they still continue to harass you or try to collect from you, it is time to contact your bankruptcy attorney to have them put a stop to these actions.\u00a0 These creditors may be sanctioned by the court for violating the discharge order.<\/p>\n

As bankruptcy attorneys<\/a> know it can be challenging to obtain sanctions and have attorneys fee and costs paid for by the offending creditor.\u00a0 Most bankruptcy judges believe there is some sort of duty to give creditors bites of the apple over and over again for violating the order of discharge.\u00a0 Generally bankruptcy attorneys<\/a> have to send letters, call or fax information to the creditor that they are violating the automatic stay and to stop immediately.\u00a0 There is no such obligation under the law to do this.\u00a0 Creditors rarely if never call or email me before filing an objection to confirmation of a chapter 13 plan or filing a motion for relief from stay adding in attorneys fees and costs for doing such things.\u00a0 It is a troubling double standard that continues to persist.\u00a0 The pendulum has swung too far towards big business rights instead individual human rights. \u00a0<\/p>\n

If you are being pursued by an overzealous creditor that is still trying to collect on a discharged debt, and if you did not have a bankruptcy attorney, contact a Fremont bankruptcy attorney<\/a> or Union City bankruptcy lawyers<\/a> today at 877-9NEW-LIFE or 877-963-9543 to protect your rights.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ryan C. Wood Once your debts are discharged in your bankruptcy case and the case is closed you would think that it is all over and you can start fresh.\u00a0 Well, that is in a perfect world and most of the time this is definitely true.\u00a0 However, once in a while, your creditors believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"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=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}