To Pro Se or Not..
It definitely is a personal decision. I filled out all the paperwork and forms for one of my brothers. His BK filing was joint, wife unemployed, 5 kids, house was foreclosed and up for auction, truck was repossessed and it all stemmed from a failed partnership that was closed in late 2008. So he had a lot of personally guaranteed business debt, including a 90K judgment from the failed partnership. He is also self employed.
The 90k judgment creditor tried to get him arrested for not appearing at a deposition. So I accompanied my brother to see a BK attorney and they pretty much made him feel like crap and refused to do anything to stop the sale of the home, and although I tried to get him to see another, he refused. His thought was they can have the house.
Finally, his wife begged me (on a Friday afternoon) to help them get the sale of the house stopped (which was the following week) and the only way I knew was to file an emergency BK. My original intention was to just do the skeleton paperwork requirement for the emergency filing and let them get an attorney to finish up. Thankfully, my brother's former partner (he was in a different district and hired an attorney) had just completed his BK and was discharged, so, I was able to use his PACER records to help fill in the forms. His former partner's circumstances were almost identical, i.e. house foreclosed, repossession, 90K judgment, self employed, married with kids, except his wife did not file.
I pretty much completed all of their paperwork by utilizing their credit reports, their court records and tax returns (which I've done for 30 years) as well as calls back and forth for cell phone and utility information and had the petition ready on Sunday for them to sign and take to the Courthouse 3 hours away for filing on Monday. The foreclosure sale was Tuesday and the BK clerk was nice enough to FAX a stamped copy to the Courthouse which stopped the sale.
Thankfully, I had been reading the BK forum everyday for an upcoming bk for myself and a different brother, as well as the NOLO handbook and PACER which also made things a little easier.
However, all did not go without a hitch. The 90K judgment creditor filed a motion (which was approved) to extend the discharge date in order to perform a 2004 exam to see if there was anything that could be used to object to my brother's discharge (yes, that's what they put in the motion). The motion was filed on day 58 after the 341 meeting. The bk judge gave the creditor 20 days, which extended it to October 5th, 2010. The 2004 exam/deposition was Sept 15, 2010.
I accompanied my brother to this 2 hour deposition which ended after the creditors attorney realized that my brother should have pursued a counterclaim for the money when he realized it was his client that ultimately caused the failure of my brother and his partner's business and their ultimate losses which led to their BKs.
So after not hearing anything or seeing anything posted on Pacer, we called (only got their answering machine) the BK court Monday, October 11, to see when we could expect the discharge and last night, October 12th, I checked Pacer and to our surprise, not only the Discharge, but the case Closed was posted. Yay!
A little prodding goes a long way if you need the court to go the next step.
Going pro se is not for the faint at heart, however, it can be done with a little patience. You do have deadlines to meet. You have to confer personally with the BK clerk in case your paperwork is missing something and they always have a deadline attached to correct any forms. Thankfully, I have used Pacer for many years and was able to view any correction requests before they were mailed. I inadvertently did not enter any "0's" in the income section of Schedule I for my sister in law as she did not work and it was considered deficient. So we added "Amended" to the form and entered all "0's" for all of the joint income section and they were good to go.
All in all it was easy, but, time consuming, which for me was Schedule "F" unsecured creditor data. You do not want to miss any Junk Debt buyers.
If you want to see if you can handle it, use MSbklawyer's suggested demo program (BestCase) to get a feel of the paperwork process as well as the NOLO handbook.
Next step is to request a motion to vacate void judgment.
For what it's worth...
My brother discharged $260k and his former partner discharged $580k, which included 137k mortgage and some medical debt.
It definitely is a personal decision. I filled out all the paperwork and forms for one of my brothers. His BK filing was joint, wife unemployed, 5 kids, house was foreclosed and up for auction, truck was repossessed and it all stemmed from a failed partnership that was closed in late 2008. So he had a lot of personally guaranteed business debt, including a 90K judgment from the failed partnership. He is also self employed.
The 90k judgment creditor tried to get him arrested for not appearing at a deposition. So I accompanied my brother to see a BK attorney and they pretty much made him feel like crap and refused to do anything to stop the sale of the home, and although I tried to get him to see another, he refused. His thought was they can have the house.
Finally, his wife begged me (on a Friday afternoon) to help them get the sale of the house stopped (which was the following week) and the only way I knew was to file an emergency BK. My original intention was to just do the skeleton paperwork requirement for the emergency filing and let them get an attorney to finish up. Thankfully, my brother's former partner (he was in a different district and hired an attorney) had just completed his BK and was discharged, so, I was able to use his PACER records to help fill in the forms. His former partner's circumstances were almost identical, i.e. house foreclosed, repossession, 90K judgment, self employed, married with kids, except his wife did not file.
I pretty much completed all of their paperwork by utilizing their credit reports, their court records and tax returns (which I've done for 30 years) as well as calls back and forth for cell phone and utility information and had the petition ready on Sunday for them to sign and take to the Courthouse 3 hours away for filing on Monday. The foreclosure sale was Tuesday and the BK clerk was nice enough to FAX a stamped copy to the Courthouse which stopped the sale.
Thankfully, I had been reading the BK forum everyday for an upcoming bk for myself and a different brother, as well as the NOLO handbook and PACER which also made things a little easier.
However, all did not go without a hitch. The 90K judgment creditor filed a motion (which was approved) to extend the discharge date in order to perform a 2004 exam to see if there was anything that could be used to object to my brother's discharge (yes, that's what they put in the motion). The motion was filed on day 58 after the 341 meeting. The bk judge gave the creditor 20 days, which extended it to October 5th, 2010. The 2004 exam/deposition was Sept 15, 2010.
I accompanied my brother to this 2 hour deposition which ended after the creditors attorney realized that my brother should have pursued a counterclaim for the money when he realized it was his client that ultimately caused the failure of my brother and his partner's business and their ultimate losses which led to their BKs.
So after not hearing anything or seeing anything posted on Pacer, we called (only got their answering machine) the BK court Monday, October 11, to see when we could expect the discharge and last night, October 12th, I checked Pacer and to our surprise, not only the Discharge, but the case Closed was posted. Yay!
A little prodding goes a long way if you need the court to go the next step.
Going pro se is not for the faint at heart, however, it can be done with a little patience. You do have deadlines to meet. You have to confer personally with the BK clerk in case your paperwork is missing something and they always have a deadline attached to correct any forms. Thankfully, I have used Pacer for many years and was able to view any correction requests before they were mailed. I inadvertently did not enter any "0's" in the income section of Schedule I for my sister in law as she did not work and it was considered deficient. So we added "Amended" to the form and entered all "0's" for all of the joint income section and they were good to go.
All in all it was easy, but, time consuming, which for me was Schedule "F" unsecured creditor data. You do not want to miss any Junk Debt buyers.
If you want to see if you can handle it, use MSbklawyer's suggested demo program (BestCase) to get a feel of the paperwork process as well as the NOLO handbook.
Next step is to request a motion to vacate void judgment.
For what it's worth...
My brother discharged $260k and his former partner discharged $580k, which included 137k mortgage and some medical debt.
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