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Pre-Bankruptcy Counseling Process
Our certified credit counselors understand how important your clients are to your law practice and the urgency of filing a petition. Our credit counseling management team has worked hard to prepare our certified credit counselors to help your clients facilitate their Pre-BK Counseling requirement while educating them about budgets, spending plans and the new bankruptcy law.
Counseling and education from Credit.org will help your clients during their most difficult time; with bankruptcy turning their finances upside down, the financial literacy and budgeting help we offer will make it easier for them to make it through the bankruptcy process and get back on their feet quickly afterwards.
On average, the counseling process will take about 90 minutes, as required by the EOUST. Each session is confidential and private between your client and one of our certified counselors.
Our Pre-petition Counseling process is as follows:
Step 1:
Client calls in from their home or from your office. Our automated phone system will immediately connect your client with a live representative.
Step 2:
The representative will immediately register the client into our client management system, read our counseling disclosure and prepare them to begin the pre-petition counseling session.
Step 3:
The counselor will collect the pre-petition counseling fee. Credit.org may reduce or waive the pre-petition counseling fee for debtors whose household income is less than 150% of the estimated poverty threshold for their applicable family size as published by the Bureau of the Census, AND the debtor is unable to pay the fee based on the debtor's budget analysis.
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to review our fee waiver policy.
Step 4:
The counselor will start by providing background education on the bankruptcy law, credit counseling options and possible bankruptcy solutions. We'll also discuss the circumstances that led the consumer to consider bankruptcy and do a budget analysis with them, so that they will be more successful avoiding financial difficulty in the future.
Step 5:
The counselor will create a livable household budget, which includes monthly net income, monthly household expenses, unsecured debts and secured debts.
Step 6:
The counselor will review a spending plan with the client, based on their household budget information. The goal of this spending plan is to show the client where they are today and how to adjust their budget, so that they will be more successful avoiding financial difficulty in the future.
Step 7:
The counselor will briefly go over and explain the debtor education requirement to the client and why they need it.
Step 8:
The counselor, on behalf of the client, will order a "166-page Consumer Action Handbook" provided free of charge by the Federal Citizen Information Center
Step 9:
Issue Completion Certificate. The counselor will issue a completion certificate to the client. The client may specify how they wish the certificate to be delivered, (i.e., mail, email, or fax.) Also they may authorize the counselor to copy their attorney if applicable.