Does The Wife Have to File For Bankruptcy If Her Husband Does?

Over one million individuals and couples file for Bankruptcy each year. In most cases, if you file for Bankruptcy, your spouse will also be responsible for the related debts. Bankruptcy attorney Benjamin Ginter runs the Law Offices of Benjamin J. Ginter in Cranford, New Jersey. Here, he talks about what married couples need to know in the event of Bankruptcy.

If a couple own a house jointly and one of them would like to file for Bankruptcy, the trustee will look at the filing spouse's plea and make it fifty-fifty.
So let's say the husband has a lot of debt and files for Bankruptcy, but the wife doesn't and is not liable to the debt, that means she doesn't have to file. And it turns out that after all the liens, the exemptions, and things of that nature, the house is worth $30,000. The filing husband is only entitled to $15,000 of that equity instead of $30,000, while the wife owns the other 50% of that.
Different Cases
If a man files for Bankruptcy and his spouse does not, she could possibly be responsible for the debts if she is a co-debtor. But she will not have the negative credit mark of a Bankruptcy on her credit report.
It is not required that married couples file together. A spouse only has to file if he is a co-debtor on the credit card, or if he has his own debts which he'd like to discharge as well. A spouse is not required to file, however, if he is a co-debtor on an account where his spouse is trying to discharge from Bankruptcy. But in that case, he will still remain liable for that debt.
If one spouse files and the other does not, and both of them are co-debtors, the person who does not file will still be liable, and he will still have to pay that debt. That is why married couples almost always file together. Couples usually have their assets and debts in common, so if one files and the other does not, the one who doesn't file will have to pay the debt.
What Is Joint Petition
Please keep in mind that a joint petition is a Bankruptcy petition filed jointly by a husband and a wife. Only people who are married are able to file a joint petition. Unmarried partners must file a petition respectively.

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Reasons Why You Might Not Need To File For Bankruptcy

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Many people in today's economy are deciding to file for Bankruptcy or with their bills mounting every week, might be thinking about it. The reasons that people are thinking along these lines are nearly the same for all of them ??"" they have been laid off from their job and the aspects of a new job are not looking promising, they ran up high hospital bills that were unforeseen and possibly largely not covered by health insurance, or maybe a very messy divorce.

What all of these things contribute to is falling behind on one's financial obligations, and almost certainly numerous of your creditors are calling you to demand when you propose to get your account caught up, or if your accounts are currently severely past due, sometimes those collection agencies can get significantly more threatening or ominous.

If this is sounding like the position you are in, you might be thinking that it is time for file for Bankruptcy but similar to anything else, there are aspects you must know about it since the process to declare Bankruptcy is significant more complicated today with recent changes in Bankruptcy law than it used to be in the past. It is surely not a game like playing Monopoly where declaring Bankruptcy is trivial and part of the fun. There is very little fun in the real thing.

Most people do not genuinely know where they stand financially. You in all likelihood don't either. You don't believe that? Ok, can you tell me immediately exactly how much you are in debt to within about $100 total, as well as your existing past due amounts and how many months past due you are on each account, as well as the composition of your debts such as student loans, secured credit, unsecured credit, mortgage, and other?

Without that level of info at your fingertips, you are not prepared to file for Bankruptcy and you have some research to do and info to acquire. You see, that level of detailed info is necessarily required to be given to the courts so that they can decide if you should even be permitted to file. Yes, filing for Bankruptcy is not an automated process that you can perform whenever you wish and the courts must approve it. If your financial position is not presented in the correct light, you will not be approved. It is for this reason that you should use a Bankruptcy lawyer who can analyze your finances and who has the experience to present your situation to the courts in the light that is most likely to grant the preferred solution.

Do you have choices or alternatives? You may and this is another piece of the puzzle that an experienced Bankruptcy lawyer can counsel you about. Did you know that certain kinds of debt cannot be eliminated through any chapter of Bankruptcy? This is true and if a good portion of your debt is comprised of these kinds of debt, then filing is not going to offer the total relief that you are seeking."

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