Credit Help Services by Credit Clean
Bankruptcy Information
341 Meeting or Creditors Meeting
Bankruptcy 341 Meeting
Also Known As a Creditors Meeting
RETURN TO PREVIOUS PAGE Did you know that several Presidents filed for bankruptcy? Abraham Lincoln did ... do you think a President could file for bankruptcy these days and still be President? Bankruptcy is your constitutional right. If you can get the help of a bankruptcy court then accept it. There are many protections for you in bankruptcy and cleaning up credit reports after bankruptcy is quick and painless allowing you to regain your credit freedom in no time at all. Those who file bankruptcy become more creditworthy than those who try and do the right thing by paying off their bad debts. Your creditors hold all the cards so think twice about paying off any debt before checking with a knowledgeable person. You could set yourself up for something much worse than unpaid debts. THE FORMAL DESCRIPTION OF THE 341 MEETING IS BELOW:
341 meeting A meeting of creditors at which the debtor is questioned under oath by creditors, a trustee, examiner, or the United States trustee about his/her financial affairs. Going to a 341 meeting is usually the only time you have to appear for anything when you file a bankruptcy. The bankruptcy attorney will more than likely appear for this too. Normally all questions at this meeting are directed to you. Your attorney is there to object to things that can be objected to. In most of the bankruptcy cases no creditors show up for this meeting. The 341 meeting is a short process of about 15 minutes. Once you get through it you will get your discharge papers sent to you normally within 3 or 4 weeks. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy takes normally about 90 days from the time you file until the time you receive your discharge papers. Rule of thumb is the larger the city the longer the process takes. For a Chapter 13 bankruptcy you normally will not be discharged until you have finished all your payments to the trustee which is usually from 3 to 5 years depending on the repayment plan. A Chapter 13 is a partial repayment of your creditors for instance if you owed $30,000 in unsecured debt and your income decreased then a lot of people only pay back a third of what they owed to the creditors over the period of time set by the trustee so in essence you are protected by the court when you file the bankruptcy and continue to be protected during the repayment plan. Protection means that your creditors cannot file any type of lawsuit against you or continue to report any derogatory information about your payments, on the accounts filed in bankruptcy, to any credit reporting agency. The only way things can go bad in a bankruptcy is if you don't follow through with it and the court dismisses it. Once a bankruptcy is dismissed all your creditors can come back after you in full force and they will be notified if the bankruptcy is dismissed. The court sends out a letter to each creditor once the case is dismissed. No matter what sort of bankruptcy you file, filing absolutely STOPS your creditors dead in their tracks. The creditors cannot call you once you have filed and they are notified of such. If they call you all you have to do is give them the docket number of the filing which would be given to you by your attorney. Once this docket number has been told to them they cannot call you again it is against the law. Creditors cannot file a lien or judgment against you after a bankruptcy is filed. If you have liens or judgments or creditors who are threatening you with either, once you file bankruptcy they cannot move forward at all. Bankruptcy stops all creditors in their tracks. There is only one way a creditor can come after you once you file bankruptcy and that is if you get the bankruptcy dismissed instead of discharged. Dismissed if different than discharged and you don't want a dismissal of bankruptcy unless you are converting from a Chapter 13 to a Chapter 7. Dismissed bankruptcy will allow all creditors to pick up where they left off prior to you filing the bankruptcy. The only protection you have is while the bankruptcy is active or discharged so be careful when thinking about dismissing a chapter 7 or 13 and not following through with payments on a chapter 13 as the court will dismiss the bankruptcy for non payment. Bankruptcy is the best solution for those who have had some major problems, it will clear up the problems and cleaning up credit reports after bankruptcy will get you back on the road to credit health usually within six to eight months if you clean up the reports. If you leave the bankruptcy mess on your credit reports it could take as long as seven to ten years before you are able to establish credit and buy things on credit again. Make sure that cleaning up the bankruptcy is as important as the filing of bankruptcy. Whether you clean up your reports or you have someone do it for you PLEASE do it and as soon as you get your discharge of bankruptcy. Our clients who have filed bankruptcy are scoring well in to the high 600 level with their credit scores. When 620 for the most part is the low end of "A" credit rating; credit scoring in the high 600 level after filing a bankruptcy is excellent. With these scores you are able to buy homes and cars with very good interest rates. You are well on the way to full credit recovery within the first year. Obtaining new loans continues to increase the credit scores each and every month. One of the worst things you can do after filing bankruptcy is to pay an account or creditor late. Keep your bills paid on time no matter what. One late payment can have a major affect on your credit scores simply because you had filed a bankruptcy. In short it is of utmost importance that you keep your payments on time. Bankruptcy is a right all of us have to end the attack of creditors. If you are in a situation where you cannot pay your creditors obviously there is something bad that has happened to you. People don't spend half their life building up good credit and then decide one day they don't want the luxury of having good credit any more and decide to destroy it. This is a ridiculous thing to even consider. What's more the credit card companies now want you to invest in a credit protection program. a) One is to protect you from fraud and buying that protection is the most useless way you could ever spend your money. For one thing when you have a fraud case you are not responsible for any money that is charged on your credit cards over $50.00. Why would you want to pay for protection? It is another way the credit card companies take a little more of your hard earned money FOR NO REASON AT ALL. b) The second protection is that you pay so much on every $100 charged in case you get ill and can't make your payments on your credit cards. This again is almost laughable, maybe some people and their problems would fit in to that 9 month period of time that this protection would give you but for the most part a major problem lasts a little more than 6 to 9 months. So you pay all this money in each month and then something happens that keeps you from paying your creditors for a year or more and not only do you loose the money you paid in to this program you have now lost your credit any way. It is best to keep your money in your pocket, if you want to protect your credit do so by putting aside money in a savings account so that you can have some back up if you need it. Don't rely on the creditors for protection; they are about the farthest thing from being a friend you can get. The reason that bankruptcy was ever given as an option for us to use is because things do happen. Your creditors do not care if you are in the hospital. They will ask for the telephone number to your room and they don't care if you are on your death bed. Creditors have gotten way out of control and we think that creditors would have you exhumed just to make sure you are dead before they stop collecting from you ... but then your family will be on the line next. Creditors have scared people who are not connected to your debt at all in to paying the debts. When you don't know what your rights are people are going to take advantage of your situation so make sure you understand what rights you have before making a deal with any creditor. Return To Previous Page Page Last Updated
Friday June 29, 2007 | 
