Whose Business Is My Bankruptcy

When you file for bankruptcy you have to give the courts endless amounts of information.

You would think that the information would be all monetarily oriented but the cold truth is that filing for personal bankruptcy touches every part of your life. The information that is required by the courts is essentially your life story. 

You Are Required By Law To Declare What You Own

 

You have to tell the court of course what you have, what you intend to sell to satisfy your debts and what you would like to keep and why you think you are entitled. You have to tell them everyone you owe money to and why you owe that money. 

Your Personal Details Can Be Kept For Up To Ten Years

 

You must give up all your personal information as far as address, social security number, bank accounts, credit card numbers, birth date, and phone numbers. You must list all your assets in detail and exactly how much they are worth.

Your trustee scrutinizes everything that you buy and or spend after your filing. 

All of this information is recorded and kept between 7 and 10 years.


Here the scary thing is that the records with all the information is public. That means that anyone that has your name or your social security number or your case number can access all of that information for the next 7 to 10 years. 

Anyone who wants to look up that information has a right to do so. Most people believe that it is only employers or future creditors that can see that information. This is dead wrong. The point in making the records public in the beginning was to make bankruptcy an embarrassing process in order to deter people from using it as a scapegoat and abusing the protection provided by bankruptcy from creditors.  

Bankruptcy And Identity Theft

 

The catch is that in today's world, it instead has made you a huge target for identity theft. Just because you have filed for bankruptcy does not mean that criminals do not desire your information. With all the information that is contained in the records, there could be a million different things a criminal could do with all of that information. 

With the advent of the net, access to these records have been increased and eased.  With the trend of identity theft also on the rise, people are starting to ask for measures to be taken to protect those records from unscrupulous characters. It is worth looking into and supporting this movement because evidently your bankruptcy is everyone and anyone's business whether you know it or not.

If you're someone who doesn't like their business on the streets, bankruptcy isn't for you. Bankruptcy is public knowledge to protect creditors and other people in the financial industry from getting burned.

If you choose to file for bankruptcy it may follow you for a large part of your life. Even after your 7-10 years are up, you are still legally obligated to answer honestly anyone who asks if you've ever declared bankruptcy. Make sure you have adequate information and deep conviction in this area if you do choose to file.