How To File Bankruptcy for Free in Virginia Without a Lawyer

Collect Your Virginia Bankruptcy Documents

To file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you must collect and submit certain documents to the court. This is required even if an attorney is representing you. These documents include your tax returns for the past two years, two months of your latest paycheck stubs, and bank account statements that cover the bankruptcy filing date. 

Some documents won’t be required by the bankruptcy court but will help you fill out the documents that form your bankruptcy petition. These include: up to a full year of past bank account statements, your credit report, creditor bills, and letters from debt collectors.

All Americans are entitled to get a yearly free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus. You can request your free credit report online. 

Take a Credit Counseling Course

You have to take a credit counseling class within the six months before you file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy law requires this so you can learn about your options and whether bankruptcy is best for you. There is a fee to take the course, but you may qualify for a fee waiver if you can’t afford it. 

Be sure to take the course from a state-approved provider. When you’re done with the course, you must file a certificate of completion with the bankruptcy court when you file your bankruptcy petition. 

Complete the Bankruptcy Forms

You’ll have to fill out some lengthy forms when you file for bankruptcy. They’re the same no matter where you live, and you can download them as fillable PDFs for free at USCOURTS.gov. Follow the detailed instructions for filling them out and make sure you don’t miss any forms. A lot of them look alike! If you’ve hired a bankruptcy attorney, you’ll most likely fill out an informal questionnaire, and your attorney or their staff will fill out the official forms for you.

Get Your Filing Fee

In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the filing fee is $338. You may be able to get the court to waive the fee if your current income is below 150% of the poverty guidelines. (See Virginia’s Fee Waiver Eligibility table below.) When you file your documents, the court clerk will require you to pay the fee.  

Once you file your bankruptcy case, the court assigns you a case number. As soon as this happens, an automatic stay goes into effect. The stay means that during the bankruptcy action your creditors can no longer come after you to collect on your debts. If you’re in a hurry to file for bankruptcy because a creditor is starting proceedings to garnish your wages but you can’t afford the $338 filing fee, you have options. 

You can ask the court to let you pay the fee in monthly installments. You must pay an initial minimum amount of 25% of the filing fee within 30 days of filing the petition. After that, you pay monthly installments of no less than 25% of the filing fee. You have to pay off your full filing fee in no more than four installments. This is a good option for people who need to file in a hurry to stop the creditors’ debt collection actions. That said, make sure to make your payments or the court could dismiss your case.

Print Your Bankruptcy Forms

You need to print your bankruptcy forms in a particular format for the bankruptcy court to accept them. They should be one-sided and printed in black ink on white, letter-size (8.5" x 11") paper. When you’re printing out the bankruptcy forms, make sure you sign everywhere you need to sign. It’s also a good idea to make copies for your own records. If you take an extra copy to the court when you file the court can stamp your assigned case number onto your copy.  

File Your Forms With the Virginia Bankruptcy Court

Virginia has two bankruptcy districts: the Western District and Eastern District. Your options for filing your bankruptcy forms will depend on which district you live in and whether you’re filing with or without an attorney. In both districts, attorneys can file bankruptcy cases online using the courts’ Electronic Court Filing System (ECF). Individual filers in the Western District can submit their documents electronically using the court’s Electronic Self-Representation (eSR) filing system. The eSR system is not currently available in the Eastern District. 

No matter where you live, you can always file your documents in person or mail them to the court. If you’re filing in person, take your documents to the court clerk’s office. The clerk will ask for a picture ID when you come to file your documents. You’ll also need your filing fee or an application for a fee waiver or to pay in installments.

Mail Documents to Your Trustee

The court will appoint a bankruptcy trustee once it opens your bankruptcy case. The trustee is an independent third party whose job is to manage the property in the bankruptcy estate and to verify all the information you provided. The court will either notify you once the trustee is appointed, or the trustee will contact you directly.

Next, the court will schedule a meeting of creditors where you’ll meet with the trustee to answer some questions (more on this soon). At least seven days before the creditors’ meeting, you must give your trustee your last two years of federal income tax returns and a bank statement that covers your bankruptcy filing date. You may also have to submit recent pay stubs. If the trustee asks for any other documents, it’s important to cooperate and hand over all of the documents they ask for to ensure your case continues smoothly and your debts get discharged.

Take a Debtor Education Course

Before the court discharges your debt, you must take a debtor education course. This course covers financial management skills and tools to help you get the most from the fresh start bankruptcy provides.

You can take the course before or after your creditors’ meeting as long as it’s no later than 60 days after the meeting. When you’re done with the course, submit a certificate of completion to the court. The bankruptcy court may close your case without discharging your debts if you don’t take the course and submit your certificate to the court within the 60-day deadline. As with the credit counseling course, you’ll need to take the debtor education course from an approved course provider.

Attend Your 341 Meeting

Your 341 meeting is also known as a creditors’ meeting or meeting of creditors. It’s likely to be short and informal. These meetings are usually held in a courthouse office but not in the courtroom. Though they can, creditors don’t usually attend these meetings, so it’s likely to be just you and your trustee. The creditors’ meeting usually happens about a month after you file for bankruptcy.

At the creditors’ meeting, you must show a government-issued picture ID and acceptable proof of your Social Security number. If you don’t have these items, the meeting can’t go forward. The trustee will place you under oath and ask you some routine questions. The trustee may ask more specific questions about your case if they have them. When you’re done with the meeting, you’re close to getting your debts discharged.

Creditors’ meetings usually go off without a hitch, but things can sometimes go wrong. Usually, it’s when people forget their ID or proof of their Social Security number. 

Deal With Your Car

Any vehicle that’s titled in your name is part of your bankruptcy estate This means the trustee can sell it to pay your debts — but only if it’s not protected by an exemption (more on this soon). Most people who file Chapter 7 keep all their assets, including cars. Your options for keeping your car depend on the car’s fair market value, whether you’re still paying for it, and whether you can afford the payments.

If you own your car free and clear, you can keep it if its fair market value is less than the applicable exemption limit. The Virginia motor vehicle exemption limit is $6,000.

If you’re still paying for your car, you don’t need to worry about protecting the car’s entire value, only your equity. The trustee will almost never liquidate a car you’re still paying for. If you want to keep your car and continue to make the same monthly payments, you’ll need to be current on your loan payments, and you’ll likely have to sign a reaffirmation agreement. In this, you reaffirm with the lender that you’re going to continue to make your monthly payments. 

If you’re behind on payments or your car is worth less than what you still owe on it, you might be better off surrendering the car. If you do this, you won’t have to make any more monthly payments on it. Another option is to pay the lender the car’s current value in one lump sum. This is called redemption. In exchange, you don’t have to make any more monthly payments, and you own the car free and clear. The difference between the car’s value and what you owed on the loan will be discharged as an unsecured debt as part of your bankruptcy. 

If you’re leasing your car, it’s not titled in your name. This means it’s not part of your bankruptcy estate, and you don’t need to worry about exemptions. You should still list the lease on Schedule G in your bankruptcy forms. If you’re current on your lease payments, you can continue the lease and keep making payments. This is called assuming the lease. Bankruptcy also lets you get out of your lease without incurring fees or penalties. This is called rejecting the lease. 

Remember, you can always buy another car after bankruptcy, though it may be wise to wait a while to let your credit score recover so you can get a good deal on financing.