Holly H. Hines is a bankruptcy attorney with an education from Anna Maria College and Massachusetts School of Law. She serves clients in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and is an active member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, the Massachusetts Bar Association, and the Worcester County Bar Association. In this piece, she explains the basics of bankruptcy fraud.
Bankruptcy fraud is a federal crime that comes about when a debtor withholds information about income, liabilities, or assets from his bankruptcy petition. If someone keeps that information a secret from the court, then he is committing fraud.
Having a bankruptcy fraud case brought against you could prevent you from getting debts discharged in a bankruptcy proceeding, or worse. It could also result in you having to pay further restitutions for debts that may not be dischargeable. In some cases, the court may require the debtor to pay money toward creditors who were defrauded in the case, as well.
So bankruptcy fraud is something that we have to take seriously, especially in the current times. We know that many people from all walks of life right now are filing bankruptcy for different reasons, and especially right now we have to be mindful that some of those reasons might not be good.
Although there is a chance that someone filing for bankruptcy as a Pro Se Debtor, and trying to represent himself in his case, could unknowingly commit bankruptcy fraud, I don’t think that is likely.
It is hard to think that someone simply would not know that he needs to fully disclose all of his information during a bankruptcy filing, because any forms that a person would pull up online are going to have some type of disclaimer warning about that specifically.
However, if someone was trying to file for bankruptcy on his own and he overlooked those disclaimers, then he could easily mistakenly file his paperwork without disclosing all of the necessary information and it may appear that he’s trying to defraud the system even if it was not done on purpose.
In most of those cases, though, if a Pro Se Debtor didn’t complete all of his forms correctly and he didn’t meet all the required deadlines, then it is highly unlikely that his case would proceed to the point where fraud would even be brought up. In most of those types of situations, the case is going to get dismissed before anyone is charged with bankruptcy fraud anyway.
This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.
