Quick Q's about Form 6 Schedules C/F

[JoeW]

I am getting ready to file for Chapter 7. I prepared the filing myself using info I garnered from Nolo Press books and the internet, but I have a couple of questions that I am having trouble finding answers to...

My first question is regarding Form 6 Schedule C. The formatting of the PDF I got from the DOJ/Montana Courts website is completely different from the sample form in my book and what I've seen in other filings (For example, in the sample forms the category of exempt property is bold and goes across the page. The official PDF is much more like a spreadsheet where the text wraps, and the font is completely different and there is no place for me to select the property category). I ended up manually changing font/cell sizes to accommodate the text using Acrobat and manually typing the property categories. I think that it looks good but I'm not sure if it's valid.

My second question is about listing creditors on Schedule F. Most of my debts have gone to collection agencies and one is pending in court. I've seen two ways to list this:

Method 1:

<Orginal Creditor>
<Creditor's Address>

followed by

<Collector> "duplicate debt"
<Collector's Address>

Method 2:

<Original Creditor>
c/o <Most Recent Collector>
<Collector's Address>

Which of these is correct? Sorry for my wordiness, and thanks for any help!

[justbroke]

Whichever format you choose for listing the creditors is fine. I listed each of the creditors separately. A collection agency, if I knew was related to another debt, was marked as "duplicate" (or disputed) and had a "Ref: American Express" for example.

As to the proper forms. The official forms are on the U.S. Bankruptcy site. I have no idea what you're talking about with fonts and things. While there may be some local forms, the official forms are the ones you use for your filing. The Official Form 6C (Schedule C) should have a Form Date of 12/07 on the top of the page...

B 6C (Official Form 6C) (12/07)

(As an exercise, I went the the Montana site and they send you to the Official U.S. Bankruptcy Court site for the official forms. I'm guessing here, but you have probably seen forms that were generated from Best Case or some other Bankruptcy Petition management software (which does print the "description" across the boxes in bold and underlined). Since you're apparently using the fillable forms from the Official site, then you just follow "that" standard.

I also went one further and looked at the NoLo book and confirmed my suspicion. The form (Form 6C) in the NoLo book appears to have been generated with Best Case.)

[JoeW]

Thank you! You answered both my questions. I was confused by the discrepancy I was seeing with these forms. I didn't stop to consider that the sample forms I was seeing everywhere may have been created using legal software; I was getting ready to head down to the thrift store to pick up a typewriter for $6 to type it manually!

And thank you again for the clarification on the list of creditors. I feel much more confident in my filing now

[justbroke]

You are welcome. We pro se filers need to stick together.

[JoeBankrupt33]

On schedule F, I listed all creditors and collection agencies separately, but for the collection agencies, I listed an amount of $0. I didn't have any problems with this. Typically, they also have the same account numbers.

[jennordhavn]

I also listed the original creditor and collection agency separately and put $0 owing on one of them. Under the collection agency I put "Collection for ____".