In the United States, there are specific courts that handle bankruptcy rulings and specialty attorneys who handle these cases. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay its creditors. Creditors may file a bankruptcy petition against a debtor (involuntary bankruptcy) in an effort to recoup a portion of what they are owed or initiate a restructuring; in other words when an individual or a company files for relief of debt, it is termed as Bankruptcy. In the majority of cases, however, bankruptcy is initiated by the debtor (a voluntary bankruptcy that is filed by the bankrupt individual or organization). A fundamental goal of the federal bankruptcy laws is to give debtors a financial fresh start from burdensome debts.
Approaches to dealing with bankruptcy are guided by a number of laws. Currently, there have been changing sections of the bankruptcy laws and they may not be as you used to know them previously.
According to U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, the primary purpose of the old bankruptcy Chapter 7, bankruptcy Chapter 11 and bankruptcy Chapter 13 laws were:
- to give an honest debtor a "fresh start" in life by relieving the debtor of most debts, and
- to repay banks and creditors in an orderly manner to the extent that the debtor has property available for payment.
The new bankruptcy laws apply a means test for people filing bankruptcy. If a debtor has at least $100 per month left over after an IRS determined monthly expense plan, the debtor will be forced to file Chapter 13, which will see to it that debt cancellation will almost be impossible and they have to pay for five years. Just imagine life after bankruptcy now. They will not be able to file Chapter 7 of the Federal bankruptcy code, which would have eliminated all of their unsecured debt.
This will prove to be much tougher on many debtors, who would otherwise prefer chapter 7 since it gives room for debt cancellation.
There are no provisions in the bankruptcy law for debt problems caused by job loss, illness or other traumatic events, despite studies that show that these are the cause of most bankruptcy cases.
With the changed bankruptcy laws most consumers are now completely unprotected from losing a job or having medical problems. They can no longer start over by filing for bankruptcy Chapter 7. They will have less affordable help from capable bankruptcy lawyers due to the new bankruptcy law liability stipulation.