Emergency Bankruptcy Relief

You have just received a notice from the sheriff that you are being sued for foreclosure, or worse yet, that your home is about to be sold at a sheriff's sale. Or perhaps, the sheriff has levied on your bank account. Maybe he has even been to your home and inventories your property. Perhaps you are in business and the sheriff has seized your inventory. What if a "repo" man has just taken your car? Can anything be done?

Cases can be filed electronically in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern & Middle Districts of Pennsylvania, The District of New Jersey as well as the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of New Jersey.  We have been doing this since April 2003. What this means is that cases can be filed in a matter of minutes. No mail, no courier, no FedEx, no wait. Case numbers are received in seconds. This is important because once a case number is received, sheriff sales are stayed and your home is saved. It is no longer necessary to receive a stamped copy of the bankruptcy petition. trained in getting cases filed promptly. This is also important if you need to get a recently repossessed vehicle returned.

There are certain caveats though:

1. You still need to complete credit counseling in all cases before filing.  Courts will dismiss bankruptcy cases where this was not done.  It is not an excuse that you ran out of time waiting for a mortgage company decision on a loan modification.  Fortunately credit counseling can be done over the internet.  There are many inexpensive credit counseling internet-based classes available.

2. If you have filed before, the automatic stay may not come into effect, or you may need to file a motion to continue it past 30 days. 

3. There is usually little reason to wait to file a chapter 13.  Matters tend to get worse, not better when dealing with foreclosures.  It is not recommended that you put off retaining counsel while a decision on a loan modification is made by your lender.   Often times, the decision if put off until the eve of the sheriff's sale and then denied.  This puts the borrower in the compromised position having to file the chapter 13 bankruptcy case hours before the sale.  This is a position you want to avoid at all costs.