Access To Bankruptcy Records
Bankruptcy laws in the United States allow debtors who are financially unable to pay off their creditors to have a fresh start. However, bankruptcy protection may also have ramifications on the credit history of the concerned debtor. Section 107 of the Bankruptcy Laws in the United States make bankruptcy petitions a public record. This is for the purpose of informing future creditors or prospective business partners of an individual about his financial history. Bankruptcy records, in essence, may affect the ability of a person who has filed for bankruptcy to obtain credit in the future.
Bankruptcy records are also called as individual insolvency registers. Most of these provide information about current bankruptcies and those that have been finalized within the last three months. They may also include information on current individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs), fast track voluntary arrangements (FTVAs), current bankruptcy restriction orders (BROs) and bankruptcy restrictions undertakings (BRUs). Bankruptcy records can be obtained online or by going to the assigned bankruptcy court.
Relevant information can be obtained from bankruptcy records. Some of these are the name of the person who filed for bankruptcy and the other names that he also used, information about his occupation and businesses, date of birth, last known address, details of a current bankruptcy order, an automatic discharge date and if applicable, the date when the bankruptcy is rescinded.
In particular, an electronic public access service is available in the United States. This system allows the public access to bankruptcy records. PACER or Public Access to Court Electronic Records provides case and docket data for cases filed before the Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy Courts. It is a service provided by the United States Judiciary and is managed by Administrative Office of the United States Courts. A user would have to register first before he will be given access to view the pages of the website. This electronic system is available 24/ 7 and verification of updates can be done within seconds. Other information that could be obtained through the PACER system are names of parties and participants of a case including attorneys, judges and trustees, a compilation of case related information, chronology of dates of events entered in the case record, a claims registry, listing of new cases daily, judgments or case status, appellate court opinions, documents filed for specific cases and images of document copies. These online systems also allow the bankrupted individual to obtain copies of his bankruptcy records without having to go to the courts. A request for a copy can be made online. Several websites found in the Internet offer services related to this. Some sectors in the society have expressed concern about making bankruptcy records accessible to the public. This is because information obtained from these sources is used by some individuals to commit identity fraud. Some lending and credit companies consider newly bankrupted individuals as good credit risks because these people cannot file for bankruptcy again within the period of six years. This increases the incentive of some individuals to steal the identity of debtors who filed for bankruptcy protection.
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