Bankruptcy law requires, since 2005, that you do at least, in order to file the case, a pre-filing, online bankruptcy course. This is not the rule of your lawyer. This is not the rule of anybody except for black-letter bankruptcy law. If you do not do the course, your bankruptcy lawyer cannot and will not file your bankruptcy case for you. Usually, this case has to be done or I shouldn’t say case but this course has to be done within 180 days of you filing the bankruptcy case. If you do the course online but you wait more than 180 days to file your bankruptcy case, you’ll have to retake the course.
The course itself takes between one and two hours. After you complete the course then you’ll be issued a certificate, and by the way, nobody really verifies the information when you’re taking the course so just do the very best that you can do to give the accurate information. Usually, this online course costs anywhere from $5 to $50 to take the class and obtain your certificate.
You are also required to do what we call a pre-discharge class. Again, this is a course that’s taken online. The significance is that if you fail to do this, you will not receive a discharge of your debts. You have not crossed the finish line so what will happen is this: you may have already taken your pre-filing class and filed the bankruptcy case, you may have already gone to your 341 hearing, your meeting of creditors hearing, it could have gone very well for you, but you forgot or refused to take your second class.
Well, the judge will close the case, thank you very much, and you have lost all of your court filing fee and you’ve lost any attorney fees because the court cannot legally discharge you of your debts because you’ve not finished the class.If you have any questions about this, call my office at 770-792-1000 and we can discuss this in more detail.
Bankruptcy FAQ:
Frequently Asked Questions: Table of Contents Who is permitted to file and maintain a chapter 7 case? Who should not file a Chapter 7 case? Is there anything that a person must do
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