Stay on Creditors
Waukegan Illinois Bankruptcy Lawyers & Attorneys
Jesse Barrientes: You have to address those issues that are before you and take a positive action, rather than just wait for the barrage of things to happen. You know and it’s fairly stressful. We can say that kind of on the side. When you have debt collectors calling you and you have people trying to collect and they’re calling you at work and calling you at home and calling you maybe if they have your cell number too. It gets to be quite stressful and I think a health hazard as well.
David Siegel: It does. It gets very stressful. And some of these creditors go over the top and violate federal law when they’re trying to collect on these debts. And that’s really unfortunate. They can be sued under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act but it’s hard to find an attorney who is willing to bring that case when it’s only $1 thousand per violation basically.
Jesse Barrientes: Right. They’re going to do all that work which is going to exceed $1 thousand unless they have a class action and there’s been a pattern. Or unless it’s a really egregious violation.
David Siegel: Exactly. Right. Attorney fees are allowed as well so you will collect attorney fees. But suffice to say there are a lot of collectors out there that are violating the law. But now that we’re up to the filing of the case. You file it electronically through the court system through the computer. You’re issued a court date that the client has to appear to. And what kind of notice goes out to everybody that basically says hey, a case is filed. Stop your collection activities immediately.
Jesse Barrientes: Everybody gets a notice of the stay, which is the notice that you’re talking about that says – that identifies the individual or individuals who filed it. It identifies the case number. It identifies the court. It identifies the bankruptcy trustee, the Chapter 7 Waukegan bankruptcy attorney for the debtor who filed the petition. It also has what they call a 341 meeting date. 341 refers to the section that basically it’s a meeting of creditors. And when you go in on that date for Chapter 7 – it’s really not, I wouldn’t really say it’s a court date. It’s I think a little bit less more formal than a court date. But you go in and there’s the bankruptcy trustee, whoever is appointed, and there is the debtor and the debtor’s attorney.
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