The Filing
The next step in the process is the
actual filing of the Chapter 11 petition and related documents. All of the work you put in during step one of
the process is going to make this step much easier. You Chapter 11 attorney should have reviewed
all of the information and documentation you provided as well as conducted their own
search on all of the available online sources, like public records and lexis
searches.
Once the attorney has reviewed the
information, they will prepare your Petition, schedules, and other required
documents in order to file the actual Chapter 11 proceeding. Once the documents are prepared the attorney
will have a final meeting with the client in order to review the documents and
fill in any missing information. Never
let your attorney file the Petition or related documents without seeing
them. Your name is on the documents
under the penalty of perjury! Once you
review the documents and sign them, the attorney will file the case. That is when the bankruptcy court will assign
your case a case number. The bankruptcy
court is all online and requires the documents to be efiled. So you can file the case 24 hours a day.
Once your case is filed the attorney
will prepare or has already prepared all of the first day motions for filing, which are discussed
in the next article. Also the Court will
enter an order allowing the current owners to stay in control as
debtor-in-possession or will enter an order for the individual debtor to stay
in control of his finances. The Court
will also set your 341 meeting of creditors date and time. This is also the step when debtors receive their automatic stay protection which stops all lawsuits and collection efforts immediately. All of these are discussed more in later
sections.
