Effective OCT 1, BK Forms will be updated

Form Changes Pending Conference Approval

The Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules has proposed amendments to seven of the Bankruptcy Official Forms and one new Official Form. If approved by the Judicial Conference at its meeting on September 19, 2006, the proposed new Exhibit D to Official Form 1 and the amendments to Official Forms 1, 5, 6, 9, 22A, 22C, and 23 will be effective on October 1, 2006. Although the proposed amendments have not yet been approved by the Judicial Conference, draft copies of the amendments will be available on the Bankruptcy Forms Pending Final Approval page of the judiciary's website at http://www.uscourts.gov/bankform/index.html in order to give the courts, the bar, forms publishers, and software vendors additional time to implement the amendments.

You can see the proposed changes highlighted in yellow at the following link:

http://www.cob.uscourts.gov/misc/revisedforms8-06.pdf

Form Changes Pending Conference Approval
You can see the proposed changes highlighted in yellow at the following link:
http://www.cob.uscourts.gov/misc/revisedforms8-06.pdf

Great find, Anon! Very interesting to see the proposed bk form changes. Thanks for sharing!

One change that particularly caught my eye was that they are considering putting in a whole new section plus a lot more detail devoted to the pre-filing credit counseling. Check out pg 5, checkbox #3 - it looks like they are even building in a way for the courts to allow filers to file without their certificate if they made a good faith effort but were not able to get the certificate in hand within five days before filing (top of pg 5). Even more amazing, then below that they say that if the court agrees, you could turn in the certificate into the court within 30 days AFTER filing. Hmmmm.....this should make for some interesting dialog! Nice to see that after almost a year, there may be some sanity starting to creep back into a part of the BAPCPA process.

IMO, I think that is one of the most important changes in the list. It was a big flaw under the new law to require it but not really make it part of the filing documents. I feel the courts and legislators that approved the bill should shoulder a large part of the blame for people missing that filing requirement since the proof was not required in the filing package. The others are mostly semantics and/or clarification.

Technically, with the current law, there is a waiver process of not taking the credit counseling prior to filing. However, it's very strict. One of the components is requesting counseling, but not being able to get an appointment within five days. However, even with the internet and phone counseling, that wasn't even holding up. The only case I actually read where a complete waiver was granted was an elderly couple where one was nearly deaf and had cognitive difficulties associated with aging and the other was confined to a wheelchair and requiring oxygen and other medical assistance round-the-clock. In that case, they determined that the counseling would have been of no benefit to them and waived it.