Bankruptcy Debtor Education Course With New Twist

Individuals who file bankruptcy must take and certify they have completed a course on personal financial management after filing the case, or the case will close without a discharge.  This personal financial management course must be conducted by a nonprofit agency approved by the US Trustee.  The course is offered by some Chapter 13 trustees without charge.  However, each individual debtor is usually charged a fee of $20 or more to complete this additional step which is required to receive a bankruptcy discharge.  A provider, located at www.ypside.com, has begun offering the course for $15 and will provide the service to married, joint debtors for a single fee.

For joint debtors who do not have free financial management education this is a cut in cost from $40 to $15.  The savings are more modest for a single debtor.  However, there is an interesting twist to this fee.  One third of the $15 fee, or $5 from each payment, is contributed to a fund dedicated to lobbying for the abolition of the pre-filing credit counseling requirement specified in section 109(h).  While both the pre-filing briefing and the personal financial management courses are an unnecessary impediment to filing and receiving a discharge in bankruptcy, the credit counseling briefing is nothing but a waste of time and money.  Some of my clients have actually said they benefited from a personal financial management course.

In my opinion, both required courses should be abolished.  However, I am not nearly as offended by the financial management course as I am by the credit counseling briefing. In fact, I rather enjoy the thought that payment of the fee for the more useful of the two courses is helping to do away with the pre-filing requirement.  www.ypside.com helps to promote the $5 www.consumerbankruptcycounseling.info site, the least expensive alternative for the initial briefing.  This support, coupled with the effort to do away with the pre-filing requirement altogether, makes www.ypside.com the next best thing to free that I have found.

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