Legal Question in Bankruptcy in Indiana

Re: Whats the difference?

Dismissed means that the Court has terminated the bankruptcy petition, usually due to a Motion to Dismiss, either filed by the trustee handling the case or by the debtors. The debtors may discharge a chapter 13 by right. For a chapter 7, cause must be shown before the Court will approve the petition to be dismissed. Under a chapter 13, a trustee has the duty to move to dismiss the case if the debtors payback plan does not meet the minimum requirements (such as payment of priority taxes), if the plan is infeasible (monthly payment is too low or plan is not long enough), or some other related problem.

In a chapter 7, the trustee usually moves to dismiss when the debtor has abused the process in some way or another. Examples of this are: failure of the debtor to show up for the creditor's hearing, has incomplete schedules, has filed a previous chapter 7 within the preceding six years, has not listed all of his assets, or tries to discharge a ton of credit card debt while trying to reaffirm on a lot of secured debt where the underlying asset is not needed to survive (such as bass boats, ATVs, snow mobiles, etc.).

"Discharged" means that the Court has issued an Order granting the debtor relief under the bankruptcy code. This basically means that the debts of the debtor have been discharged, except for those debts that are non dischargeable.