Legal Question in Bankruptcy in West Virginia

Fees and other info re bankruptcy

Re fees: if you have so little income or assets that you can't afford to pay the smallattorney's fee charged to file most bankruptcycases, you have little to gain by filing, as you have no assets or income to protect. Ifyou do need to file but can't afford the fee, legal aid should be able to help. If you fileChapter 13, you can pay through the plan. Chapter 7 fees have to be paid up front.

You generally file where you live (or, more specifically, where you have lived for the greatest portion of the 180 days prior to filing), but you can also file where assets are located or where you do business. Asexemptions are based on where you live in anyevent, there is little to gain by filing elsewhere, although in the odd case there maybe advantages to forum shopping.

There is no minimum debt requirement for filing, and no minimum number of creditors.However, it would usually be unwise to fileif you don't owe significant sums of money that you won't be able to pay off over a reasonable time. Filing Chap. 7 when you canpay may result in dismissal for abuse of theprocess.

General information about bankruptcy

I generally advise my clients not to consider bankruptcy unless a creditor has a judgment against them (somebody they owed sued them and got a judgment) AND they are in jeopardy of losing something they want not to lose. It does not matter how much you owe or what type of debts you have.

One thing to keep in mind is that many bankruptcy courts will not grant a discharge of credit card debt unless it has been a year since the credit card was last used.

So, if your car is not about to be repossessed and your home mortgage is not about to be foreclosed, there is no reason to think about bankruptcy, yet.

One other thing to keep in mind: if you get sued, always file an answer. That will buy you time to negotiate with your creditor.