At the completion of your bankruptcy the Bankruptcy Court will issue a “Order of Bankruptcy Discharge. The Discharge operates as a permanent injunction against any creditor attempting to collect a claim from you which pre-existed the filing of the bankruptcy petition with very limited exceptions.. If an old creditor contacts you regarding a debt included in the bankruptcy do the following:
1. Tell him you filed bankruptcy and received your discharge on the date shown on the enclosed discharge order.
2. Send him a copy of the Discharge if he asks for it, or at least give him the case number , the case filing date, and my name and my phone number to confirm the discharge. If he persists in contacting you over your objections, contact me for assistance.
The “assistance” I refer to above normally means merely sending the creditor a stock threatening letter. This is done as a courtesy to you without charge and is effective to stop the problem about 99% of the time. Occasionally, there appears a particularly obnoxious creditor who ignores the letter. That type of person is handled with a “Contempt Citation” issued by the Bankruptcy Court. Obtaining this is not part of the original bankruptcy service and fee, so I would charge you a regular hourly rate, however the Bankruptcy Court usually orders the obnoxious creditor to reimburse you the amount of attorney fees you paid me, as a penalty for having been in contempt of the Discharge order. The truly recalcitrant creditor is a rarity. In the normal course of events, multiple contacts from a creditor after bankruptcy are usually the result of clerical or computer error, or the failure of a creditor to correctly separate you from someone else with a similar name.