What does my Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Discharge mean?
By Kurt O'Keefe, Attorney at Law on Jul 31, 2007 in General Bankruptcy Information
The discharge is the goal of the bankruptcy process. The court issues it after the deadline for a creditor or the bankruptcy trustee to file a complaint expires. It basically means you are free from personal liability on all the debts incurred before you filed your bankruptcy petition.
It does NOT mean you can keep your house or vehicle without paying the creditor who financed it, or lent you money against it. You must keep paying the mortgage, and home equity loan, and whatever other liens are on your house, to keep it.
If you still owe money on your truck, you have to make those payments or lose it. There is no deadline imposed by bankruptcy law for a secured creditor, that is one who has a lien on some of your property, like being on the car title, to foreclose on that lien.
Some debts are excepted from discharge, but that is a topic for another post.
There is no deadline for your bankruptcy trustee to administer assets of the estate. That is lawyer talk for property that is not exempt, or that the Trustee otherwise recovers in your case.
Think of it as a two track process. The creditors have only 60 days from your 341 hearing, which is about a month after you file, to file a complaint objecting to your discharge.
The Trustee can wait as long as she needs to get some money out of your estate.
So, your case is not necessarily over when you get that discharge paper.
Keep a copy of it for your records!
If you liked that post, then try these...
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