1996 discharged chapter 7 and university tuition collection

[CTBankrupt]

We filed ch7 back in 1996. It was discharged and closed with no objections or problems. We were young and very broke. In our petition we listed the university I attended from 1991-1992 as a creditor. I owed about $2,000 in tuition to them. It was not a loan- and I did have grants, scholarship money, and federal student loans at the time. This was just the balance of what all my financial aid package didn't cover. We listed them as unsecured.

Fast forward to today, where they are telling me I have a tuition balance and my transcripts are on hold.

Now, I've done some reading online and it appears that more than one court has sided with the debtor on this issue. Being that it is not a loan, not made by a governmental unit, not an "educational benefit" (like a stipend or over disbursement of a loan) and they did not file anything with the court exempting them from discharge, they may be in violation of the discharge injunction by withholding my transcript for payment.

See In Re: Alfred Navarro - Memorandum of Decision Re: Dischargeability of Student Tuition Account (FOR PUBLICATION), or
In Re:The College of Saint Rose v. Regner, 222 F.3d 82 (2nd Cir. 2000) or
In Re: Cazenovia College v. Renshaw 222 F.3d 82 (2nd Cir. 2000) or
In Re: Kuehn, 563 F.3d 289 (7th Cir. 2009) or
In Re: Moore, 407 B.R. 855 (Bankr. E.D. Va. 2009)

Am I crazy to think I may have a chance to win the argument here.
I think it may look even more favorable for me since they have not attempted to bill me or anything. (Don't you wish all creditors were so nice to just let $2,000 go unpursued?!!)

Obviously, opening up the bankruptcy and getting a ruling on the dischargability of their debt would cost me $$ and I don't want to do that. And it would probably be cheaper to just pay the university if that's the case. But then again, it would also be cheaper to just retake the courses I need from that one year I attended there at the community college I'm applying to. Maybe that right there is a good bargaining chip for partial payment considered payment in full for the University.

IF I have a leg to stand on, how do I make an effective argument to convince the bursar without having to go through the courts? Does this even have a shot??

[dumpinmydebt]

See this thread

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?58015-Discharge-injunction-requires-school-to-release-transcript

[CTBankrupt]

Thanks for the links. It looks like I may have a leg to stand on after all. Can anyone recommend a good course of action here? I'm gathering the first thing I would do is to ask them to prove the amount due with documentation, and to prove it meets the qualifications of being non-dischargable??

[tcreegan]

Hi CTBankrupt,

and to prove it meets the qualifications of being non-dischargable?? ...you shouldn't have to do this, you have discharge papers and their name on the list of creditors, right?

I would try to threaten them first, send the BK discharge papers, and a legalese letter referring to a couple of the court cases, and stating that withholding the transcript is an attempt to force payment on a discharged debt in direct violation of the discharge injunction.

Doesn't cost much, might work, try the cheap fix first...

Tom in Colo