Silly question - can you add a creditor after discharge?

[NewPage]

My sister asked me a question the other night, based on something she thinks our attorney's para said before filing --

Can you add a creditor to a bk that has already been discharged?

My sister is under the impression that the para said this was possible for up to a year from filing or discharge.

Yay or nay?

[ValleYum]

This is so weird - I was JUST thinking about you and wondering how things were going and then ::poof:: you posted! Hope all is going good down your way!!

Add a creditor? You mean like she forgot to list one on her petition (and she was a no-asset case) or she has a new bill (from after her filing date) that she wants to add?

[NewPage]

:-) Aw, that's nice to know you were thinking of me (hopefully not bc I am very annoying and you were wondering where the pain in the neck had gone LOL)


Yes, that is exactly what I mean. She's got a correspondence school bill I guess, and wants to be rid. I think at the time of filing she was still attending etc, but now is not and has no plans to finish.

[oregonpilot]

I was thinking about you a couple weeks ago too....i was wallpapering at someones house and there were peacocks wandering around my van. Had to keep the doors closed so i didn't take one home.

Was the correspondance school bill there when the bk was filled and just not listed???

[NewPage]

I was thinking about you a couple weeks ago too....i was wallpapering at someones house and there were peacocks wandering around my van. Had to keep the doors closed so i didn't take one home.

Yes the bill was existing but not listed.

[oregonpilot]

hi there...
from what I understand (no comment).... We need a smiley with head being scratched.....
as long as it was a no-asset case it is automatically discharged. If that is the case, a copy of the discharge notice might be all that is needed to be sent to the creditor. In my humble O

[ValleYum]

Oregon? Like this??

NewPage, Oregon is right. *However*, IIRC, education debts almost always are not able to be discharged - so your sister may need to call the paralegal and ask about this specific debt.

It is good to see you NewPage and, no, you were never a pest!!

[oregonpilot]

Oregon? Like this??

!!

YEAH...that's the one. I didn't even think about it being an education/student loan kind of thing.
DUHHH OK VY...now i need one with a hand slapping the forhead.

[ValleYum]

YEAH...that's the one. I didn't even think about it being an education/student loan kind of thing.
DUHHH OK VY...now i need one with a hand slapping the forhead.

<-- I use this one ALL the time!

[oregonpilot]

ahhh thats the one too.....you are sooo good
. I'm just reading an article on MSN Money titled...Too Poor to File For Bankruptcy. Lets see if i can figure out how to post. I may yell for help..AGAIN...in a minute!!

[luckstyl]

*However*, IIRC, education debts almost always are not able to be discharged - so your sister may need to call the paralegal and ask about this specific debt.

Tuition debts are dischargable unless these conditions are met:

1. The institution actually loaned money to the debtor for tuition purposes
2. The debtor signed a promissory note regarding the tuition money.

So if no money actually changed hands and there is no promissory note, then the debt should be dischargable.

ETA: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Your sister needs to speak with her attorney.

[luckstyl]

Here are a couple links to better explain my other post:

http://stjohns.abiworld.org/node/91

apparently the second link doesn't want to work, but it explains that "Many courts have addressed the question, include the First Circuit In re DePasquale, 225 B.R. 830 (1st Cir.1998), which found that, under the facts of the case, that the unpaid tuition was the equivalent of a student loan and therefore nondischargeable. However, the DePasquale case involved one of the two circumstances that tends to lead to a finding that unpaid tuition is nondischargeable. The debtor in DePasquale had executed a promissory note directly with the school to repay the tuition. The court determined that this converted the forbearance in collecting tuition into a loan. The other circumstance where this is usually the same result is when the school actually advances funds to the student. In circumstances other than the two I have described the student usually fares better

In re Mehta, 310 F.3d 308 (3rd Cir. 2002) is a case in point. In Mehta, the school simply allowed the student to attend school while he was behind in tuition payments. It then sought to collect the balance due. The court held that the policies in the student guidebook were not sufficient to convert the university’s forbearance into a loan and discharged the tuition bill. Unpaid tuition cases are fact-specific but generally adhere these principles.

."

[ValleYum]

Sadly, many of these correspondence schools (and beauty schools and culinary schools) have their paperwork down pat as they have legal teams attempting to make their fees bulletproof to bankruptcy. Hopefully the OP's sister may catch a break! The only way to know for sure is for her to ask the attorney!

[luckstyl]

It's highly unlikely they actually gave her the money to pay tuition with, and even if she did sign a promissory note, there's a good chance that they might not be able to produce it, particularly if the debt has been sold to a collections agency.

[ValleYum]

One can hope and I do that it is with a CA and they have sloppy paperwork!

My step-daughter has a 40k student debt load from culinary school. Post graduation, she is still working at the same grocery store bakery she worked at before she spent the money. Blergh! Her contract (even a balance she had not paid in advance with private student loans) is sadly unable to be d/c - we paid for an attorney consult to see if he thought *any* of it would be d/c in a bk and the answer we got was "No". How they got around the case you mentioned is the tuition is all due and payable up front (the attorney may have worded it slightly differently but that was how I understood it in her case).

Oddly, the school and the loan folks call us quite frequently wanting to speak with her and she lives 2600 miles away and our name is nowhere on any of her school docs. Grrrr... the wonders of the electronic age.

My comment to the OP was so that she would make sure to have her sister mention to the attorney about the education aspect - which you mentioned, too! Thanks for posting those cases - I had forgotten about them until you did!