You’ve filed for bankruptcy before, but you’ve found yourself in some type of financial difficulty that has you thinking that filing for bankruptcy again may not be a bad idea. However, you’re wondering if you can file again.
The answer to that questions revolves around how long it’s been since the previous bankruptcy was discharged. This is because the law does not establish a minimum time frame for when you can file for bankruptcy again. Instead, the law is written to dictate how often someone can receive a discharge of bankruptcy.
If you decide to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can’t receive a second discharge in another Chapter 7 case until eight years after the date the first bankruptcy was discharged. If you’ve filed for Chapter 13 previously, you have to wait two years in between bankruptcy filings in order to receive another discharge.
If you would like to file for Chapter 7 after you’ve previously received a Chapter 13 discharge, you cannot receive a Chapter 7 discharge within six years from the Chapter 13 discharge.
There are a couple of exceptions to this, however. First, you need to have paid off all your unsecured creditors in full under the Chapter 13 plan, or paid 70 percent of the claims and have a statement providing you made a good faith effort to pay your debts.
If filing a chapter 13 bankruptcy after receiving your Chapter 7 discharge, you cannot receive your Chapter 13 discharge within four years from the date your Chapter 7 discharge was filed.
For more information on filing for bankruptcy a second time, contact us.