How To File Bankruptcy for Free in Colorado Without a Lawyer

Collect Your Colorado Bankruptcy Documents

Gathering important documents and getting organized early in the Chapter 7 bankruptcy process can help ease your stress and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. Be aware that official bankruptcy forms require a lot of different information. While it's not hard to obtain, it may take some digging on your part. Even if you hire an attorney, you’ll need to collect the following:

• Your last two years of tax returns, 

• Your paycheck stubs from the last 60 days, and

• A bank statement that covers your filing date.

Although they’re not required, these documents will also be helpful to have: 

• Bank statements for the last 6-12 months can help figure out your expenses. 

• Creditor statements or bills because you’ll need to list what you owe.

• Letters from collection agencies or other third-party debt collectors because you’ll need to list all your creditors.

• A recent credit report gives you a snapshot of all your credit accounts. You're entitled to receive a free report every 12 months from each one of the three consumer credit reporting agencies. If you file using Upsolve’s filing tool, it will pull your report for you.

Take the Required Credit Counseling Course

To ensure you understand all your debt relief options, bankruptcy law requires all filers to take a credit counseling course in the 180 days before they file bankruptcy. The class will take about an hour of your time. Once you complete the course, you’ll receive a certificate. You need to give this to the court with the rest of your bankruptcy paperwork. Your certificate is valid for six months from the date you completed the course. 

Credit counseling courses aren't free, but they generally cost less than $50. If you can’t afford the fee and your income is below the federal poverty level, you may qualify for a waiver. You must take a course from a state-approved provider, and most are offered online or by phone. 

Complete the Bankruptcy Forms

Bankruptcy forms help the court get a sense of your finances. 

Even though you’re filing bankruptcy in Colorado, you should know that most forms are the same for every state because they’re federal forms. You can access the forms as fillable PDFs at no charge from USCOURTS.gov. If you file with Upsolve, you’ll complete an online questionnaire that automatically generates the forms for you based on your answers. If you’re hiring an attorney, they or their staff will typically have you complete a questionnaire. Then they’ll fill out the forms on your behalf using that information. 

Get Your Filing Fee

If you’re filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Colorado or another state, you must pay a court filing fee of $338. The fee is due when you submit your bankruptcy petition (aka your paperwork) to the court. If you earn less than 150% of the poverty guidelines, you can apply for a fee waiver. The court has to approve the waiver application. You can see if you qualify by looking at the Colorado Fee Waiver Eligibility table below. 

If you’re facing wage garnishment, foreclosure, or other serious collection measures, you may want to file your case quickly to take advantage of the automatic stay. This stops creditors from trying to collect from you as soon as you file your bankruptcy case. If you need the protection of the automatic stay, but you don’t qualify for a waiver and you can’t afford to pay the full filing fee, you can request to make a down payment and pay the rest of the filing fee in installments. 

The court will tell you the minimum down payment required when you file and how to make the rest of the installment payments. Only use this option if it’s absolutely necessary, though. If you miss an installment payment, you risk having your case dismissed.

Print Your Bankruptcy Forms

First, print the court's document checklist. The list for Chapter filers is on page 6. It includes all the forms you need to file your Colorado bankruptcy petition. This will help you stay on track and ensure you don't overlook any essential forms or information. It can be an especially helpful guide for you if you have different forms saved in different places on your computer.

When printing your forms, use regular, white letter-size paper and print in black ink. Also, print each form single-sided, and don’t staple them together. It's natural to want to stay organized and keep your documents in order by stapling them together. But this increases the processing time and effort required by court staff and could also cause the court to reject your documents. If you’re printing individual sections, make sure you don't inadvertently skip any sections or forms. Finally, sign in every designated signature spot. 

Upsolve users will receive their Chapter 7 bankruptcy packet as a single download. It includes dividers that flag each signature page.

File Your Forms With the Colorado Bankruptcy Court

In some bankruptcy districts, only attorneys can file bankruptcy cases online. Thankfully, Colorado filers also have an electronic option. If you’re filing bankruptcy on your own in Colorado, here are your options for submitting your forms: 

• You can mail them to the court.

• You can submit them in person at the courthouse in Denver. 

• You can file online using a system called I-File. This was designed for folks filing without a bankruptcy attorney. 

If you have access to a computer, using the I-File system is a good way to make sure your case is filed promptly. If you send your bankruptcy petition via mail, you risk delays or having the papers get lost in the mail.

Mail Documents to Your Trustee

The court assigns a trustee at random to every bankruptcy case. Your bankruptcy trustee ensures that your creditors are treated fairly. The trustee is responsible for verifying that the information you submit on your forms is correct. They’ll do this by examining some of your financial information and meeting with you in what’s called a 341 meeting. 

At least seven days before your 341 meeting, you must send your trustee the following:

• A bank statement that includes the date of your filing. The court needs a snapshot of your finances on the day that you filed for bankruptcy. For example, suppose your filing date is 1/15/2022, and your bank statements run from the first of the month through the last day of the month. In that case, you will need to submit your bank statement that ends 1/31/22. 

• Your two most recent federal income tax returns.

In addition to these two documents, you might be required to submit pay stubs, other bank statements, or other financial documentation to your trustee. In most cases, your trustee will send you a letter telling you what they need from you.

Take the Required Debtor Education Course

Similar to the mandatory credit counseling course you took before you filed, you must also take a debtor education course before you can get your bankruptcy discharge. This second course focuses on financial management and gives you some helpful tools for managing your finances after your bankruptcy.

If you don't complete an approved course within 60 days of the creditors' meeting and file the certificate with the court, the court can close your case without entering a discharge.

Attend Your 341 Meeting

Every bankruptcy filer must attend a 341 or creditors' meeting. In Colorado, this meeting is typically held about four to six weeks after you file your case. A few days after you file, the court will send you a form 309A notifying you of the date, time, and location of your 341 meeting.

Your 341 meeting may be held in person or via telephone or video conference. Read any notices you get carefully, so you know how to attend your meeting.

You’ll need to bring your government-issued ID and your Social Security card or other proof of your Social Security number to the 341 meeting. The trustee will review these identifying documents and then place you under oath to ask a series of questions about your finances and bankruptcy application. Your creditors can also attend this meeting, but they rarely do.

The meeting of creditors usually only lasts about 5-10 minutes. Once it's over, you can move on with the next steps in your bankruptcy.

Deal With Your Car

If you finance or lease a car in Colorado, you’ll need to make some decisions about it during your bankruptcy. First, you should know that if you own your vehicle free and clear, it may be an asset in your bankruptcy case. However, if it’s worth less than $15,000 (or $25,000 if you’re disabled or elderly), your car is protected based on the Colorado exemptions, and you can keep it. If your car is paid off or close to being paid off, this exemption will be critical to your case.

If you're still making loan payments on your vehicle, federal bankruptcy law lets you determine how you want to handle it. If your vehicle doesn’t have a high market value, especially when compared to the balance on the loan, you can surrender or redeem it. Either choice eliminates your obligation to pay the loan. 

If you surrender your vehicle, you give it back to the loan company and owe nothing further on your loan. However, if you redeem it, you pay the loan company the fair market value of the car or the balance of your loan, whichever amount is lower. You then own the vehicle and don’t need to make any further payments on it.

If you like your loan and car and you’re current on payments (or can get back up to date quickly) you can reaffirm the loan and keep the arrangement basically the same as before your bankruptcy filing. As long as you keep making on-time payments to your loan company, you can keep your car as if nothing happened. 

Whichever option you choose, the U.S. Bankruptcy Code lets you deal with your car loan in a way that makes the most financial sense for you and your family. Keep in mind that filing for bankruptcy doesn’t mean you won’t ever be eligible to buy a car again.