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At the conclusion of most individual bankruptcy cases a Debtor receives a “discharge” of his debts. The discharge is a release of your personal legal obligation to repay your debts. In part that discharge serves as an injunction against the discharged creditors ever attempting to collect a discharged debt.

In some cases a creditor may ignore the discharge injunction and continue to harass the debtor in an attempt to collect the debt. This harassment is illegally and hampers the Debtor’s ability to get a fresh start and move on in life.

A creditor may be liable to a debtor for violations of the discharge and have to pay to the debtor money damages.

If you have been the victim of harassing phone calls, collections letters, or other debt collection activates on discharged debt you may be entitled to money damages.  

The Law Office of Robert W. Kovacs, Jr. will pursue all such violations. We will handle your discharge violation case even if you used another attorney for the underlying bankruptcy case.

After filing bankruptcy the “automatic stay” comes into effect.  Much like the name implies it happens automatically upon the filing of your case and stays actions against you.

This means that a creditor cannot call you to collect a on a debt as soon as your case is filed. However, it may actually take 2 – 3 weeks for all your creditors to receive notice of the bankruptcy and really stop calling.

During this 2 – 3 weeks period you may answer the phone and tell your creditors about your bankruptcy filing. The creditor will likely ask for your case number and attorney information. Providing this information will cause the creditor to have actual knowledge of your filing and thus they will have to stop calling.

If they still continue to call, call your lawyer, the creditor may be ignoring the stay or they may not have received notice of your case. In either event a strongly worded letter from your attorney is appropriate.

If after a warning letter from your attorney the creditor continues to call, you may be able to bring an action against your creditor for money damages.

Student loans are typically non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Therefore after your bankruptcy case is over you will still be personally liable on your student loans and have to pay them.

In very rare cases student loans are discharged in bankruptcy. In order to discharge student loans in bankruptcy you must prove that the loans cause an “undue hardship.” This would involve a trial within the bankruptcy court, often referred to as an Adversarial Proceeding or “AP.”

Successful litigants are typically are currently not working and will be unable to ever again have gainful employment.