Legal Creditor Nofication

What is the name of your state? Washington State

What exactly is required when trying to claim a creditor? I have original creditors and then other collection agencies that have the account to collect on it. Is it sufficient to just file on the original creditor or must you also file on the collection agency regarding that account? I ask because that doubles the amount of creditors I have to list and my attorney charges me more based on how many creditors Im listing. Which is going to double the cost. If it is sufficient to just provide the information for the original creditor with the current amount due the collection agency that would be great. Any info would be great!!

Unfortunately. From your posts I assume you have a copy of all three credit reports, not a 3-in 1. Paying your bk lawyer extra for including the CA's will be "peanuts" compared to having a CA file suit on you later down the road after your bk is discharged. The CA's generally wait until you can no longer add them to your creditor matrix and can no longer reasonably re-open your bk (generally about a year after you receive your discharge paper), then pounce. Not speaking from personal experience on this one; this happened to an acquaintance.

Good luck to you.

[JETX]

Cyana is correct. It is fairly common for an original creditor to 'sell' the debt to another company and for that 'new creditor' to contact you. If you don't put that 'new creditor' in your filing, the debt may not be discharged.

Bottom line.... include EVERY debtor and agent that you know of if you want them to be included in the possible discharge.

[quote]Originally posted by cyana
[b]Unfortunately. From your posts I assume you have a copy of all three credit reports, not a 3-in 1. [quote]

No I have a 3 in 1 report. But I was told two different things that conflict by my lawyer. He stated that the whole intent is to get the papers back to the original creditor either by sending them directly to the creditor or to the CA who then kicks it back to the original and its the original creditor that matters in clearing the debt. But then said I have to include ALL my debt and all credit agencies as well, which skyrockets the cost for me and takes longer for me to be able to afford to file. Probably 60 days longer now.

And I understand that its cheaper to include them, than deal with it later, but it greatly delays my filing. So I want to do it right the first time and if there are things that are not necessary to cut those out because this whole thing is extremely stressful and overwhelming to me.

[Ladynred]

I realize that it could delay your filing and cost you more money in atty's fees, but by leaving a collection agency off you open yourself to a LOT of potential problems.

For a debt that has been SOLD to collection agencies, the original creditor couldn't care less about the debt as they have washed their hands of it completely and gotten their tax writeoff for it. That's why people who try to call OC's after a CA has bought a debt will only get referred back to the CA as the creditor no longer 'owns' the debt and will not deal with it.

If you've got debts that have not been charged off but collection is being handled by a CA, then what your lawyer is suggesting would be valid, but only under those circumstances. For any others that are charged-off and actually sold, you'll be wide open to lawsuits post-discharge from those CA's, and re-opening your case to include these CA's, if you even could, will cost you a LOT more money than including them now.

I agree with the above posts. However in Colorado the BK court takes a dim view on CA's waiting until the discharge to sue. If you have listed all your debts in good faith but didn't know one or more of them was sold, it is the responsibility of the primary company to notify the company they sold it to of the bankruptcy. In turn, it is the responsibility of the CA to notify any company they sold the debt to. I realize that this is the way it works in a "Perfect World" but I know in Colorado the court will side with the debtor if the debtor listed all of the primary creditors as well as secondary creditors that the are aware of. I was sued and it ended up costing PRA recoveries $10,000 plus attorny fees. Of course the money went to the trustee for distribution.

[JETX]

"However in Colorado the BK court takes a dim view on CA's waiting until the discharge to sue."
*** That might be your experience in your particular situation, but it really isn't relevant. The courts will rule in accordance with the law (and not on a 'dim view' basis). The law says that if a debtor fails to disclose a creditor in a chapter 13 filing, that debt is not discharged upon order of the bankruptcy court.

You *must* get a separate copy of all three credit reports. You can order them online directly from Experian, Transunion and Equifax. 3-in-1's are not complete, especially when it comes to Original Creditor's selling debts to CA's.

What Ric stated may be true in some cases but not all. That's why it is critical to list all creditor's that you know of and a 3-in-1 just doesn't have that kind of detail. All a CA would have to claim is that were listed on your TU, but not EQ or EX for example, and any "affirmative defense" (barring out- of -SOL) against a future CA's further legal actions could be thrown out the window. Since you "failed" to list them, they could legitimately claim that they were not properly notified of your filing, hence they could state that they were just "getting" to taking action on you after a year or two or ten. You don't want that to happen!

Now, if by chance an OC or CA has recently sold your account AND you have made a good faith effort by listing ALL your known creditors from all three credit reports, then you have a chance to get a trustee to dismiss a claim by a CA.