As a married person, do I need to file for bankruptcy with my spouse?
Transcript:
Hi, this is Matt McArthur, bankruptcy attorney at Clear Counsel Law Group. I was recently asked a common question that's presented to me during consultations and the question is this, "I'm a married individual. If I'm thinking about filing for bankruptcy do I have to file with my spouse?"
The answer to this question is simply no, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind if you plan on filing bankruptcy as a married individual, but not including your spouse in the filing of the bankruptcy.
The first concern is that only debt that is in the filing spouse's name is going to be discharged as part of the bankruptcy process. In other words, because the non-filing spouse never filed for bankruptcy, the debts and responsibilities to pay those debts that are in the non-filing spouse's name, will follow them after the discharge of the filing spouse's bankruptcy.
Now, that's kind of a mouthful to think about, but just think of it this way, the person filing for bankruptcy gets their debts wiped out and the person that doesn't file for bankruptcy, obviously, is going to be stuck with those debts after the filing of the bankruptcy of their spouse.
The other thing to keep in mind is, particularly in the Chapter 7 case, even the non-filing spouse's assets can be part of the bankruptcy's process and that a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, where assets could potentially be liquidated to pay off creditors, this is of a major concern that you want to be able to address with an experienced bankruptcy attorney to make sure that you're not going to lose any valuable property like a non-filing spouse's car, or perhaps a non-filing spouse's jewelry that you didn't really think about when you were speaking with your attorney originally because they weren't going to be part of the bankruptcy process.
The fact of the matter is, even the non-filing spouse's assets could potentially be part of the bankruptcy estate sold off to creditors and the non-filing spouse probably isn't going to care for that very much, if you filed for bankruptcy and lost all their items.
Please, before you file for bankruptcy and consider filing as an individual, if you're a married person, please speak with a bankruptcy attorney and address these issues to determine exactly what protections are in place for you as an individual to file without your spouse.
Until next time, I'm Matt McArthur signing off. We'll see you.
