How to avoid getting tripped up in a trap set by Congress supposedly to prevent bankruptcy abuse.
The appropriately criticized Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (“BAPCPA”) tried to prevent perceived abuses of the bankruptcy laws in a number of ways. One of them you’ve probably not heard about and can give you a bad surprise if you stumble into it.
The Bad Surprise
Beside the legal write-off (“discharge”) of your debts, the other big benefit you usually get from filing bankruptcy is protection from your creditors. That legal protection is called the “automatic stay,” and prohibits creditors from pursuing you or your money or your other assets. It goes into effect the moment your bankruptcy case is filed, and lasts throughout the life of your case—the few months of a Chapter 7 case and the few years of a Chapter 13 case (unless a creditor files a motion and gets special court permission, the so-called creditor’s “relief from stay”).
But imagine filing a bankruptcy and getting no protection at all from your creditors. Being in a bankruptcy case with the creditors still being able to call you, sue you, garnish your wages. Imagine this happening when you totally don’t expect it. That WOULD indeed be a bad surprise.
Having this happen is very rare, but considering the extreme consequences you want to make absolutely sure that it does not happen to you.
The Abuse Being Addressed
The problem arises in certain circumstances if you filed a prior bankruptcy case which got dismissed—closed without being completed. Before Congress put this law into effect, a very, very small minority of people filing bankruptcy–usually people without attorneys representing them—would file a series of bankruptcies, one after another, for the purpose of continuously delaying a foreclosure or some other action by a creditor. After their first bankruptcy case would get dismissed, they would file another one just in time to again impose the “automatic stay” and stop the foreclosure or other creditor action, and then repeat the cycle. You can see how this could be seen as an abuse of bankruptcy in general and abuse of the “automatic stay” protection in particular.
The Rules
So this is the law that Congress passed to counter this. It has two main parts.
First, if you are filing a bankruptcy case now, AND you filed ONE previous bankruptcy case during the one year before filing this new one, AND that previous case was dismissed, the “automatic stay” goes into effect when you case is filed BUT AUTOMATICALLY EXPIRES after 30 days UNLESS before that time we convince your bankruptcy judge that you meet certain conditions so that the “automatic stay” continues. See Section 362(c)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code.
Second, if you are filing a bankruptcy case now, AND you filed TWO OR MORE previous bankruptcy cases during the one year before filing this new one, AND those two cases were dismissed, then the “automatic stay” does NOT GO INTO EFFECT AT ALL with the filing of the new case. The “automatic stay” CAN go into effect AFTER the case is filed if within 30 days of the date of filing we convince your bankruptcy judge that you meet certain conditions so that the “automatic stay” gets imposed. See Section 362(c)(4).
The details of the conditions that must be met to continue or impose the “automatic stay” in these two circumstances are beyond the scope of this blog, but they require you to establish your “good faith” about why the previous case(s) was (were) dismissed and why you filed the new one.
Some Important Practicalities
If you have never filed a bankruptcy case, or have definitely not done so in the last year, then you don’t need to worry about any of this. And even if you have, these rules don’t apply to you unless your prior case(s) was (were) dismissed. Usually you would know if you’ve had a case dismissed.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that people get unexpectedly tripped up on these rules more often than you might think. It tends to happen one of three ways:
1) A person files a bankruptcy without an attorney, gets overwhelmed by the process and doesn’t follow through, so the case gets dismissed. The person may think he or she didn’t “really” file a bankruptcy case, or may simply forget about it under the stress of the time months later when filing another case.
2) A person sees an attorney, signs some papers, and the case gets filed at court, maybe without the person fully realizing it, and then gets dismissed because he or she doesn’t follow through and doesn’t stay in touch with the attorney. Months later, while seeing another attorney or trying to file a new case without one, the person isn’t aware that he or she had filed that previous case, and/or has forgotten all about it.
3) A person’s Chapter 13 case is dismissed because changed circumstances make it impossible to make the court-approved plan payments. Months later, when creditors are causing problems again he or she files a Chapter 7 without an attorney. Not realizing that the previous Chapter 13 case ended by being dismissed, in the new case the “automatic stay” expires after 30 days, letting all his or her creditors resume all collection activity.
To Be Safe…
Prevent any of this happening to you by 1) carefully considering whether you might have somehow filed a bankruptcy case within the last year, and 2) if there’s ANY chance that you did, telling your attorney in your new case right away. If you did file a case that got dismissed, there is a good chance that your attorney will be able to persuade the bankruptcy court to impose or retain the automatic stay. But that will only happen if your attorney knows about the issue in advance and determines whether your case will meet the necessary conditions.
