C Is For Creditor

 Creditors may not all look like this.  OK, probably none of them do.  But that is what some of them make us think they are, on their way to bashing our heads in if we don’t fork over the loot.

Loot that we don’t have.

The bankruptcy code defines creditor as:

(A) entity that has a claim against the debtor (the person who filed bankruptcy) that arose at the time of or before the order for relief concerning the debtor;

It goes on to list definitions (B) and (C), but reading those gives even me a headache.

To further translate definition (A) into English, “entity” is a person or company or partnership or securitized trust, whatever, that claims you owe it monty.

The “order for relief” is the filing of the bankruptcy case.

Lawyers.  The way we write sometimes.  “at the time of or before the order for relief” just means before you filed the case, or, at the exact moment you filed the case.  That is how it reads.  Frankly, until re-reading this just now, I always assumed there was before and after a case was filed, and no “at the time of”.

Even before electronic filing online, courts had time stamps, and we knew the exact minute of the day a case was filed.

So, in the world of bankruptcy, Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, we have debtors, the good guys, the people who file, and, creditors, the ones trying to get money, the bad guys, no the other.

Oversimplification, I know, but, this is a blog, not an encyclopedia.

The important thing about creditors is TO LIST THEM ALL ON YOUR BANKRUPTCY.  You do not have a choice, you are under oath in a Federal Court.  It is perjury to leave someone off the list, do you want to look at the sun come up in chunks? as one of my lawyer friends likes to say.  (Chunks would be the part between the bars on your prison cell.)

If there were one thing I could get from my clients by waiving a magic wand over their heads, it would be this one.  Tell me everything.  No thinking.  Anyone getting your money, trying to get your money, that you are paying money, that has any kind of claim against you for money, gets listed.

If you dispute the debt, you say you owe nothing, no problem, list them, and we check the box that says “disputed.”

Debtors benefit, because the court sends the notice to everyone, so the creditor knows to stop bugging you.

Oh, you say you don’t want to list cousin Sue, your plan to pay her.  MUST BE LISTED.  You can pay anyone you want.  The law does not require you to list only the ones you do not want to pay.

Don’t risk the prison cell.

Other C topics:

Check Your Bills Athena Inembolidis, Columbus OH bankruptcy attorney

Conversion

Counseling

Cramdown

Competence and Compassion

Co-signer

 C is For Claims

Cheap and Reasonable

Cross Collaterilization & Credit Unions

Celebrity Bankruptcy Filings