What documents do I need to bring when I first meet with my bankruptcy attorney?
One of the biggest burdens, under the “new” bankruptcy law, that was forced upon debtors and their attorneys in 2005, was the requirement to produce volumes and volumes of documents. In addition to the formal schedules and statement of affairs, you’ll need to get together a lot of paperwork to file bankruptcy. One nationally known attorney from North Carolina has said that before the law was changed, he would tell his clients that you paid your attorney to run around the court house. Now, under the new law, you pay your attorney, and both the Debtor and the attorney get to run around the court house…
In our experience, the presentation of the documents only serves to verify the truth of the matter, and that is that the overwhelming debt is much too onerous to deal with, and the need to file a Bankruptcy is even more necessary. The frustrating part of the practice of ‘law’, in this regard, is the time consuming task of gathering documents that state what is already obvious. Even so, submitting these ‘due diligence’ papers is a major part of debtor bankruptcy practice, today.
Documents Needed For an Initial Case Review
All this as a preface to answering the question, what documents do I need to bring when I first meet with my attorney? The most important, mandatory documents would have to be a list of your outstanding debts and a list of your assets, focusing on major assets, such as houses, cars, boats, trailers, timeshares and the like. We rarely ask for the actual bills from the creditors, as we routinely download a credit report , which document captures most of the needed information.
Then, a recent paystub, and a rough budget for bring home income, and expenses. These would be bare minimum documents for an initial review.
Additional Documents Will Be Needed if You Move Forward With Bankruptcy…
If you and your attorney decide to go forward with your case, you likely will be provided with a detailed check list of all the other myriad documents needed, such as loan payoffs, copies of titles, copies of tax returns, 6 months of pay advices, deeds of trust, proof of insurance, and on and on. Thankfully, though, most of these documents can wait to be produced during the retainer and filing process, and need not be brought to the initial consultation.
San Diego Bankruptcy Attorney, John C. Colwell
Image credit: ifindkarma’s
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