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Although it was a little bit frightening at first, the new bankruptcy law was not that much of a hassle. I was expecting a lion, and what I found was a lamb.

I was already about 50% of the way through my Chapter 13 discharge, when my current business went belly up. Rather than go into the details of the business failure, I wish to relay to my readers my experiences in navigating the new bankruptcy legal issues and what was involved in filing a new Chapter 13 petition while still in the midst of one.

The new bankruptcy laws, require petitioners to undergo credit counseling. This was done via a Credit Counseling agency entirely over the phone, the entire process took less than 30 minutes. The entire process was fairly simple and involved the councilor reading several prepared statements and my acknowledgement of the information. Upon completion of this session, the agency will furnish the petitioner with a certificate of completion. It is this certificate which is needed in order to file a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 petition. A second Counseling session is required before the bankruptcy can be completely discharged.

Once the petition was filed, everything proceeds basically the same way as with the pre-2006 filings. A *meeting of the creditors* is held in front of the bankruptcy trustee. This is basically a simple recorded transcription to verify that you are who you say you are, and that the documents you have filed are correct to the best of your knowledge. This process takes about five minutes, however it usually takes some longer amount of time to be called up by the trustee, due to the large number of cases that are seen on any given day.

The final step in my specific situation was a motion for the court to extend the automatic stay. In most bankruptcy cases an automatic stay is issued by the court at the time of petition to protect the petitioner from lawsuits and property seizures while undergoing the re-organization. However if this is a re-filing or second filing, the automatic stay is only in effect for thirty days, and the petitioner must make a motion to the court in order to extend it.

This motion, was the first motion of this type that the presiding judge had to consider.

This consideration took less than 10 seconds and the entire process was completed.

I hope that this short article will help in easing the anxiety of anyone going down this same path.

More information can be found at:

http://www.chapter7answers.com

http://www/chapter13answers.com