One of the goals of the Bankruptcy Abuse and Prevention Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), was to eliminate fraud and loopholes used to discharge debts which should not be dischargeable. For example, under prior law, domestic debts that were not classified as support obligations, but were incurred in the course of a divorce or separation, were dischargeable under limited circumstances. These included property settlement agreements which can be part of a divorce but not considered a support obligation. The rationale was that if the obligations were not support related, a debtor should be able to discharge the debt if the benefit to the debtor outweighed the detrimental consequences to the former spouse or child of the debtor. As a consequence, an adversary lawsuit would have to be commenced to prevent the discharge.

As part of the BAPCA, Congress removed the distinction between support obligations and nonsupport obligations. Consequently, regardless of whether a domestic debt is considered support related or not, the debt is nondischargeable under either a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. See 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(5) & (15). This benefits the creditor because the change means an adversary proceeding is no longer required. As a result of these changes, if you have a domestic support obligation that you can no longer meet, bankruptcy cannot relieve you of that obligation. However, if the debt is combined with other dischargeable debts, bankruptcy may allow you to discharge debts with less priority allowing you the ability to satisfy your domestic debt obligations.