We are a solo practitioner attorney’s office in Las Vegas. If you want personal attention from your bankruptcy lawyer and don’t want to be shuffled between several attorneys and paralegals all the time, this is the place to come.
Mr. Smith himself will be with you at the Creditors’ Meeting, not another bankruptcy attorney who’s never looked at your file.
We take your calls even after you pay us!
702-420-7052
Chapter 7, often better-known as the “Fresh Start Bankruptcy” allows for the elimination of nearly all your debts.
The U.S government looks at it as a “liquidation,” meaning that all nonexempt property must be sold and the proceeds distributed equally between creditors. No creditor can be favored above another.
ARE YOU ELIGIBLE FOR A CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY?
- To qualify for relief under a Nevada Chapter 7 Bankruptcy filing, the debtor must be: an individual, a partnership, or a corporation or other business entity, though we are only addressing individuals here.
- Individuals may file a Chapter 7 Nevada Bankruptcy subject to a means test, which we administer for you. The means test is basically a list of questions on income and debts owed.
- No matter the amount of your debts, they can all be erased by filing a Nevada Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.
- However, if you filed a Nevada Bankruptcy petition during the preceding 180 days and it was dismissed due to failure on your part to appear at the Bankruptcy Hearing, or you failed to comply with court orders, or you voluntarily dismissed the previous bankruptcy case because your creditors sought relief from the bankruptcy court to recover property on which they hold liens. 11 U.S.C. §§ 109(g), 362(d) and (e), you wont’ be able to file at this time.
- As part of the process of a Nevada Chapter 7 Bankruptcy filing, you must, within 180 days before filing, receive credit counseling from an approved credit counseling agency* either in an individual or group briefing. 11 U.S.C. §§ 109, 111.
- You must file any debt management plan you develop during this required credit counseling with the court. It is not mandatory for you to create such a plan during the credit counseling.
- The primary purpose of a Nevada Chapter 7 Bankruptcy filing is to give an honest individual debtor a Fresh Start. Once your Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is discharged, you will have no liability for the discharged debts.
- A bankruptcy discharge does not remove a lien on real estate.
YOUR ALTERNATIVES TO FILING A CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY
- If you are engaged in a business, including a corporation, partnership, or a sole proprietorship, you should consider filing a Nevada Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. It would allow you to keep your business and to keep operating it and earning income from it. Your debt would either be reduced or reorganized, or the time for repayment would be extended.
- Even if you do not own your own business, but you do have an income, a Nevada Chapter 13 Bankruptcy would allow you to save your home from foreclosure, for instance.
- If your current monthly income is more than the Nevada State Median Income (see above on this page), the Bankruptcy Code requires application of a “means test” to determine whether the chapter 7 filing is presumptuously abusive.
- Another option to a Nevada Chapter 7 Bankruptcy open to you is out-of-court agreements with creditors or debt counseling services, such as loan modifications.
The Information Needed by Bankruptcy Court for a Chapter 7 Filing
We collect the following information from you to complete the Nevada bankruptcy forms:
- List of all creditors and amount owed to them
- The source, amount, and frequency of your income.
- List of all the property you own
- Detailed list of your monthly living expenses
If you are married, we will need that same information for your spouse even if you are filing as an individual. This is so that the Bankruptcy Court can evaluate your household's financial condition.
The large majority of collection actions against you will automatically stop upon filing. The sooner you file, the faster the harassment stops.11 U.S.C. § 362. The bankruptcy court clerk is obligated to give notice of your bankruptcy case to all the creditors whose names and addresses you provided to us and which we included in your bankruptcy petition.
About 3 - 5 weeks after we filed your bankruptcy petition, you will be required to attend a mandatory meeting of your creditors. The case trustee presides over this meeting and our attorney attends with you.
During this meeting, the trustee will put you under oath, after which the trustee and any creditors that may have come to the meeting may ask you questions. Most creditors do not appear at these meetings unless the debt is unusually large or there are other special reasons the creditor feels he or she should appear.
If you filed jointly with your spouse, you must both attend this meeting.
Within 10 days of the creditors' meeting, the U.S. trustee will report to the court whether the case should be presumed to be an abuse under the means test described in 11 U.S.C. § 704(b).
The bankruptcy judges assigned to your case is prohibited from attending the meeting of your creditors. 11 U.S.C. § 341(c). Property of the estate. Under § 726, there are six classes of claims; and each class must be paid in full before the next lower class is paid anything. The debtor is only paid if all other classes of claims have been paid in full. Accordingly, the debtor is not particularly interested in the trustee's disposition of the estate assets, except with respect to the payment of those debts which for some reason are not dischargeable in the bankruptcy case. The individual debtor's primary concerns in a chapter 7 case are to retain exempt property and to receive a discharge that covers as many debts as possible.
If the majority of your debts are consumer debts (credit cards), the following documents must also be filed with the Bankruptcy Court: ( 11 U.S.C. § 521):
- Certificate of credit counseling
- Evidence of any payment from your employer(s), if any, received up to 60 days before filing;
- Statement of monthly net income
- Any anticipated increase in income or expenses after filing
- Record of any interest you may have in any federal or state qualified education or tuition accounts.
If married, you may file a joint petition with your spouse, or an individual petition if you are filing on your own. 11 U.S.C. § 302(a).
If you are filing with your spouse, all of the same documents filed in an individual bankruptcy must also be filed with a Joint Petition for Nevada Bankruptcy.
Free Consultation for Those Who Wish to Retain a Lawyer for their Nevada Bankruptcy
