There are many periods during which you, and your trustee, will need to talk to your creditors about your bankruptcy. Before filing, you may be receiving collection calls and need to take advantage of the Stay of Proceedings offered by filing bankruptcy. Once you have filed bankruptcy or a consumer proposal, your creditors will be notified of your bankruptcy so that collection calls can stop.
Even after completing your bankruptcy, there can be potholes in the road – pre-bankruptcy creditors that rear their ugly heads. It doesn’t happen often but it can. There are three main reasons why a creditor might contact you after your bankruptcy is finished:
- Creditor’s Error: Your creditor has not correctly recorded your bankruptcy in their documents or forwarded the information along to their collection department or outside collection agency. This is an honest error and can happen.
- Coercion: Your creditor tries to coerce you into paying anyway. We have seen this in the case of payday loan companies. They attempt to bully you into paying because after all you had the use of their money. Do not fall for these tactics. You have no legal obligation to repay creditors whose debts are discharged in your bankruptcy.
- Omission: You may have forgotten to list a creditor with your bankruptcy documents and as a result your creditor does not even know about your bankruptcy.
How to deal with each of these scenarios is fairly similar. The first step is to understand what your bankruptcy means in terms of your debts and next, how to proceed if your creditors call you.
Your Bankruptcy Trustee Is Your Best Resource
The easiest answer if a creditor contacts you, both during and after your bankruptcy, is to look to your trustee for advice. You can simply refer the creditor to the trustee that handled your bankruptcy or contact your trustee directly yourself with the creditor’s information. Your trustee can advise you on what paperwork you can forward to your creditor, or if the situation warrants they may contact your creditor for you.
Understanding What Your Discharge Does
Let’s start with understanding your discharge from bankruptcy and what that means. Discharge is the technical term that means you have completed your bankruptcy and are therefore no longer legally responsible for the debts that were included in your bankruptcy. At this point the debts aren’t necessarily gone – you just can’t be made to repay them. The debts themselves disappear when your trustee is discharged from your bankruptcy. This step happens after your discharge and depending on the time of year and complexity of your bankruptcy, may take months to happen. The trustee’s discharge is what closes a bankruptcy file and eliminates the debts permanently.
Talking To Your Creditors
If you have recently been discharged from your bankruptcy then the first thing you should do if a creditor contacts you is direct the creditor to your trustee. If your trustee hasn’t been discharged then it is likely that your creditor may not have processed your bankruptcy correctly and that may be easily corrected by your trustee’s office.
If your trustee has been discharged (your bankruptcy is long finished) then you may have to send (by fax, mail or email) copies of your bankruptcy documents to the creditor yourself. Your creditor will want to see proof that you have been discharged and a copy of the Final Statement of Receipts and Disbursements from your trustee. You should keep copies of your bankruptcy documents in a safe place in case you ever need them after your bankruptcy. If you don’t have a copy, again contact your trustee.
In the very rare instance that the creditor persists after you have provided them with this information you should send them a registered letter requiring them to cease collection actions and take you to Court. If a hearing is scheduled you simply provide the Court with the same documents – your Certificate of Discharge and the Final Statement of Receipts and Disbursements – and the judge should dismiss the case and order the creditor to pay you for your time in Court.
Creditors Who Were Never Notified
The above noted instructions will allow you to deal with a creditor that was listed on your bankruptcy documents that tries to collect after your bankruptcy is finished. However it is possible for a creditor to appear after your bankruptcy is finished where the creditor wasn’t listed on your bankruptcy documents (in other words a pre-bankruptcy debt that was never notified about your bankruptcy because you didn’t tell your trustee about the debt when you filed).
This type of debt may still be dealt with by your bankruptcy. If your trustee hasn’t been discharged yet then simply tell the creditor to contact your trustee and they will still be able to participate. If your trustee has been discharged then the creditor is entitled to the same rate of return that all of your other creditors received from your bankruptcy. This may sound complicated, but it is not.
The last page of the Final Statement of Receipts and Disbursements is called the Dividend Sheet. It shows you how much each creditor was paid at the end of your bankruptcy. In many cases it is literally zero – that is, your creditors were not repaid any portion of your debt. The creditor that wasn’t listed has the right to receive the same rate or repayment that the creditors; that were listed in your bankruptcy received. If they all received nothing then the new debt is entitled to nothing. If they received 5% then the new creditor is entitled to 5%. Most creditors don’t bother once they realize how little they are entitled to receive.
There is one more option for a creditor that wasn’t listed on your original bankruptcy documents. If the creditor can prove that you deliberately left them off the list so they would not be notified of your bankruptcy then the creditor may ask the court to allow their debt to survive the bankruptcy. The onus however is on the creditor to prove you knew about the debt and therefore excluded it on purpose.
As you can see, filing bankruptcy is a legal process that provides you with a framework to not only eliminate your debts, but deal with your creditors after your bankruptcy is completed. This is one of the major advantages of using a formal debt relief mechanism under the Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act, whether personal bankruptcy or a consumer proposal. Once notified & dealt with, collection calls will stop by filing bankruptcy.
what is the fax number for equifax and transunion, to send them my bunkruptcy discharge?
Try these links to their websites:
http://www.consumer.equifax.ca/dispute-ca/dispute_process/en_ca
http://www.transunion.ca/ca/personal/creditdisputes_en.page
What about a debt that arises during bankruptcy? For example, a fine as a result of professional misconduct from regulatory body whose disciplinary process is not stayed by the bankruptcy. If the discharge relates to all debts incurred before filing of an assignment, does this debt get caught by the bankruptcy?
No, only debts that exist prior to bankruptcy are included in a bankruptcy.
Since you are describing a very specific debt (a professional misconduct fine) you should seek professional advice to review the specifics of your situation.
Hi there
I have been discharged from a bankruptcy back in December 2014.
The debts included in it appear as derogatory accounts or in collections write off with 0 amounts owing. Is that the correct way they should appear on my credit bureaus?
As well one of my debts secured against my old home is listed under secured and unsecured claims in the final dividend sheet. Is that correct? It looks like it’s double posted and accounted for two e so it looks like I owed 2 loans instead of 1 and they are the same thing.
I filed my bankruptcy with mnp ltd.
Thank you
Hi Cristina. Credit bureaus are somewhat inconsistent, but what you describe is probably correct. I would suggest that you contact your original trustee, who has all of your paperwork, and ask them to compare your bankruptcy documents to your credit report to ensure that everything is being reported correctly.
I’ve been discharged from bankruptcy for 9 months. Is it ok to go back to the same bank-CIBC- and open a joint savings account?
Legally, yes, you can. I would suggest that you closely monitor your account to make sure that nothing is accidentally taken from it (which shouldn’t be an issue, since your bankruptcy is over and it’s a new account).
Why would a creditor be permitted to exclude themselves from a bankruptcy, particularly if that creditor is the only creditor? Can you point me to some literature on the subject?
Have a look at Section 178 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act – it sets out debts that are not “dischargeable” by bankruptcy. So it is not that a creditor may have themselves excluded, it is more if they can prove their debt falls under one of the clauses of Section 178 their debt “survives” the bankruptcy process.
I was in a car accident in 2007. In Jan or Feb 2009 the insurance company filed with the courts to get their money. I was never notified about anything. In March 2009 I filed bankruptcy and put the insurance company as a debt. I didn’t know what I owed but out the amount from the one bill I got. Last week I was served with a notice to make a statement of defence…. Regarding this debt and insurance company. Apparently the claims person didn’t know I filed bankruptcy. I and my trustee sent the original files that show they were included. Are they able to go after me now 10 years later? I thought my bankruptcy took care and all was done. Now all there’s years later they have been after me in the supreme Court not knowing I filed bankruptcy. They, not the lawyers ever did an insolvency search… I gave the info to the insurance company and they said they would pass it to their legal team to decided if they will proceed… Is that even possible to come after me 10 years after I included them in my bankruptcy?
If the debt existed when you filed bankruptcy, it is dealt with in the bankruptcy. You should contact your trustee and ask them to issue a stay of proceedings to stop the legal action.
Does a new lawyer do this or my trustee? Do I have to pay for this as I feel I’ve already paid for a bankruptcy? I have sent my trustee an email requesting what you have mentioned. What is a stay of Proceedings’?
This is something for your trustee to deal with. If your trustee has not responded to your email, phone their office and request an in person meeting with your trustee (not a clerk) and explain the issue and ask them to assist in dealing with the problem.
I have been discharged from a 9 month bankruptcy.
Both credit bureaus show under “Public Records” that the bankruptcy is “discharged”
Scotiabank is showing both of my accounts with them as “Collection/Charge Off” after the fact – the Visa is still showing a payment amount and a revolving account status with this in the remarks section:
[Account Included in Bankruptcy]|[Third Party Collection/Account Turned over to Collection Agency]
The second account (overdraft from chequing account) is also showing as “Collection/Charge Off” but as an installment account – a payment amount is also being listed with this in the remarks section:
[Account Included in Bankruptcy]|[Bad Debt Write Off]
Is this accurate? I have received my letter of discharge from my trustee… If I read correctly in this article, the status of these 2 accounts should now show “discharged” with no balance/payment amount?
Please let me know.
Thank you!
It is a little more complicated than that – your discharge releases you from repayment of the these debts, but the debts themselves aren’t discharged until your bankrupt estate is closed by your trustee. Depending on whether or not they are waiting for any tax returns to be assessed by CRA this may take a few months to happen.
Hi, this is a great site and resource. I was discharged from bankruptcy in 2015 and have had to fight with Equifax and Transunion to continually correct wrong information on my reports relating to accounts that were included in the Bankruptcy. As such, RBC is STILL showing a Visa and Line of Credit accounts as being “Open” and reporting to my credit bureau with late payments which is severely damaging my credit score (which I have impeccably worked to rebuild) Even though these accounts are explicitly listed in my bankruptcy my repeated attempts to have them removed from my report have resulted in no action and they continue to diminish my credit. I am at my wits end? Should I contact my original trustee from four years ago? Is there anything I can do?
Thank you in advance.
Hi Lee. Unfortunately it is very common for the big banks to report inaccurate information, and Equifax and TransUnion are slow to make corrections (because they work for the big banks, not for you). I would suggest the following approach:
First, contact your original trustee and confirm that RBC actually filed a claim in your bankruptcy. It is possible that they didn’t, which may be why the account is still showing as open. If that’s the case, your trustee can send them another copy of your original creditor’s package.
Next, fill out the dispute resolution form that you get with both your Equifax and TransUnion credit reports, and report the issue again. Often it takes more than one request to get them to fix it.
Finally, information automatically purges from your credit report in six years, so if there has been no activity on your account since 2015 (or before), it will automatically purge in 2021 (which is small consolation for you now, which is why you want to do the first two steps first). Hope that helps.
We filed for bankruptcy 14 years ago and this was our first and only bankruptcy. We were released from it after the allotted time period. Our Sears debt on the card was part of the bankruptcy. Now that Sears has closed and Scotiabank has the files, our debt has been handed to a collections agency. This is ridiculous as this debt was part of the bankruptcy filed 14 years ago. This has affected our credit scores. What can we do? Scotiabank is also our bank and our mortgage provider. This problem has just turned up in the past couple of weeks. Thank you.
This is becoming more of an issue for people as a couple of “new” players have entered the business of buying old accounts and they are trying to collect on debts that have been discharged by bankruptcy or a proposal. If you still have the bankruptcy (or proposal) documents you can dispute the debt with the people trying to collect or with the credit bureaus (or both). If you do nothing the damage will continue and the collector might even try and get a new judgment against you to enforce the debt. That will be even more difficult to fix. There is also something in Ontario called the Limitations Act – this is a defense in Court against debts that you haven’t acknowledged in more than 2 years. To utilize this defense you send the collector a registered letter (or couriered) demanding they cease and desist collection action and take you to Court. Of course you need to attend in Court if they do…
Hello,
My discharge from bankruptcy happened in April 2019. On my credit report, several of the creditors included in the bankruptcy are showing the date of last activity, and the date reported. The issue and lack of knowledge I have are with the date reported; this is showing August 2019. I feel this date should be the date of discharge. Am I wrong in thinking this?
Hi Mary. I would agree that the discharge date should be April, not August. I suggest you contact the trustee to confirm the date of discharge (ask them to send you a copy of your certificate of discharge if you don’t have it) and from there your trustee can advise you on how to contact the credit bureaus to correct the information reported.
I am in a similar position I was discharged almost a year ago and my credit report has major errors. Cards I never had, almost all have non derogatory comments, open revolving accounts charge off and closed and few mention discharged in bankruptcy which they should and my trustee is totally useless.
I’m getting ready to dispute the massive amount of errors on my credit report. . Very nervous they are still going to come after me or my trustee never told them and are not even aware of the bankruptcy. Most show they are still checking my the accounts every month to this day. Have a bad feeling.
Any advice? The 178 worries me. I know got to do something now. Trustee is no help it’s sad. My Transunion one shows they don’t even have my correct address??.
Hi Cory. I am sorry to hear that your trustee is not helping you. I would suggest that you complete the dispute resolution forms with the credit bureaus and they will likely be able to correct the errors.
My wife and I are owners of a Corporation that was in the plumbing bussiness. for healthe reasons the corporation isn’t operating anymore and we have both filed for personal bankrutcy in sept. 2019. A client we had done work for over a year and a half are wanting to take us to small claims court. the corporation has no assets any more ( every thing sold at action and disributed to creditors). my question is can we be held personaly liable for any claim from the court?
If you are personally bankrupt, you can’t be personally liable for debts that existed prior to the date of bankruptcy. They could sue the corporation, so the corporation is liable, but since the corporation is now closed and not operating it’s moot. Your trustee can provide you with further instructions on how to deal with this.
Hello- is it possible to apply for a consumer proposal after being discharged from a bankruptcy? My partner was discharged in November 2018 but owes CRA approximately 40k from his 2018 and 2019 returns. He is self employed and with covid he has lost his job.
Certainly, it happens more often than you may think. If CRA was a major creditor in his bankruptcy then they may ask for “more” of a repayment than is usual in a proposal. Typically, creditors will accept about 30% of the debt owed, or an amount equal to what a second bankruptcy may be worth – which ever is higher, but if CRA was a major creditor in the bankruptcy them may ask for 50% or more “just because they can”. Whomever your partner speaks to about the consumer proposal should be able to explain all of this in greater detail.
My aging mother would like to add me to the deed of her home, how long after the bankruptcy must we wait to do this legally? My discharge was June 2018.
You may safely do so anytime after you have been discharged (so June 2018).
Hello, I filed a bankruptcy in 2017 and discharged in 2018 , since then my TransUnion credit score been going up by checking through my bank accounts for score and report for free, in October 2020 I decided to subscribe to Equifax credit reports to find out that most of my creditors are still reporting me till now . So my question is can i sue them for violation of the bankruptcy discharge injunction as suppose they are obligated to stop pursuing me for any debts ? also i need your advise in this matter .
You may sue anyone for anything – if you are willing to pay for it. Likely it will be more productive to use the dispute resolution process at Equifax to see if you may have your report corrected. Taking this step before you sue anyone will also bolster your case against them (assuming they don’t make the corrections). Just saying, I wouldn’t start threatening lawsuits until you give Equifax a chance to fix the errors…
Hi there, I was discharged in April 2018. I have a new creditor (my former landlord) to whom I owe 3 months in back rent prior to vacating the premises. I have been unable to pay then due to loss of employment, and a lack of steady income, thanks to Covid, I have yet to “get back on my feet” – he is now threatening legal action. If I am already bankrupt, can the landlord pursue a claim to receive the owed debt or does my bankruptcy status protect me from this ?
If the rent arrears pre-date when you filed your bankruptcy then the debt should have been discharged when you were discharged back in 2018. If your old landlord takes you to Court then make sure you attend, show roof that you filed for bankruptcy and that you were discharged and that should be it. Your old landlord is entitled to the same rate of repayment that all of you other debts in the bankruptcy received. If you other debts received ten cents on the dollar then that’s what the landlord should receive. If your other creditors received nothing then that is what the landlord should receive. Have you already sent your old landlord all of your bankruptcy documents? Do they know that you filed? If they don’t know about the bankruptcy it may complicate things a bit for you in Court.
Hi,
I went through a net worth audit, so business and personal.
we couldn’t keep fighting our personal tax debt with cra anymore so we went the consumer proposal route.
We dissolved our business while the business still had an owing an amount on it.
We know that cra can’t come after us personally right now because we are in our proposal.
But what happens after the 5yr proposal is done and clear? Can they come after us with the interest incurring after our proposal is over?
No they cannot. When the proposal is completed the debts associated with it are discharge – that means they no longer exist. This is something to discuss with your trustee if you have any further concerns.
Hello,
I filed for bankruptcy back in 2009 and was discharged in 2010. I have my discharge document. I was contacted in 2018 by collections for my student loan which was my main reason for bankruptcy. I told them my claim and they ask that I send proof I claimed. I sent the proof and now 3 years later they are starting to send stuff again. Asking to see the list of creditors that were on my bankruptcy. My list just says osap not the bank. My trustee no longer deals with bankruptcies and I’m not sure how to make this go away. Can you please suggest something more I can do?
You can try contacting the Office of the superintendent of Bankruptcy and ask if they have anything in their system that will provide you with greater details of who your creditors were and how much they received. If you want the current collection agency to leave you alone send them a registered letter requiring them to cease collection activity, instructing them to take you to Court to resolve the matter. If they continue after receiving such a letter you may lodge a formal complaint and that may impact their license. Of course if they do take you to Court make sure you attend and provide proof of the bankruptcy. When you filed in 2009 are you certain your student loans were old enough to be included? The student loan rules have changed a few times over the years so make sure you are right about them being discharged.
Hello,
I have recently received my certificate of discharge. Am I free to voluntarily repay a debt to my father that was included in the bankruptcy?
Yes, once you are discharged, while you are not legally obligated to do so, you are free to repay any debts you wish.
Thanks for all the helpful information here!
My wife and I entered into a consumer proposal in 2011. We hunkered down and paid off the agreed amount in half the time, near the end of 2013. We have the certificate of completion.
One of the creditors, Scotiabank – where my wife and I each had separate lines of credit – has now sent us demand letters to pay off these LOCs in full. Each of them now, with interest, is almost double the amount that we owed 10 years ago. These LOCs were both included in the consumer proposal, which Scotiabank accepted.
Oddly enough, my wife was recently contacted by another creditor, also demanding payment.
Scotiabank is insisting that we each pay the full amount, with interest. They do not accept that the LOCs were part of the proposal, even though I have the documents to prove it. They said to have our trustee contact them. Problem is, our trustee got shut down a few years ago, and I have no idea who has the trustee’s records. We have documents that were emailed to us by Industry Canada, confirming everything, but Scotia will still not acknowledge.
To make matters worse, Scotia took over $2K out of my personal account last week, and applied it to the LOC. I had no notice of this, the money was gone in the morning.
I’m confident that Scotiabank is in the wrong here, but that doesn’t solve our problem. I’m left with deliberately leaving my bank account empty so Scotiabank doesn’t drain it.
Any advice? Should we be seeing another trustee? A lawyer?
Thanks very much.
If your trustee’s office has closed you should contact the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (part of Industry Canada) and request copies of the Final Statement of Receipts and Disbursements. This should include a list of payments made in the form of dividends to your creditors. Sounds like you have done this. Next step is to send Scotia a letter requiring them to cease collection activity and to take you to Court. In Court you’ll have to produce all of the proposal documents and presumably the judge will through the whole thing out – and award you costs of attending.
Why are you banking with Scotia? When you started the proposal weren’t you advised to switch to a new bank? Regardless, switch banks now or Scotia will keep grabbing payments (it is called the right of set off and it would be legal if you had not filed the proposal).
Hello.
We have been discharged from bankruptcy March of this year.
Had a collections for $17K included in the bankruptcy. Few days after the discharge, the collections updated the debt in our credit report to “reopened” dated few days after our discharge and listed as derogatory.
We are working on improving our credit score which has increased quite a bit since then.
Is there a way to have this corrected? Or will it be an issue coming up and showing as a debt still? Will the 17K come up as credit used? Our credit report says 86% of our credit used. Have since got a credit card again, but keep it paid off in full as soon as we use it, and our house mortgage.
This collection report has me concerned.
Thanks for your time.
You have two choices, (well three if you decide to do nothing) first use the dispute resolution processes on the credit reporting agencies websites to have the amount corrected, or second contact the creditor directly to have it corrected. The second is more certain, but also more work. If the creditor is uncooperative you might end up hiring a lawyer or using option 1 anyway…
Hello,
We had a consumer proposal from MNP in BC and it was discharged in 2015 and finally came off our credit bureaus in May 2018. We were able to finally get a mortgage this August for our home. As we are now looking at doing some renos, we went to Scotiabank (we have a chequing and RRSP account with them). Scotia was not one of the creditors on our proposal, but my husband spoke to a representative in 2019 about a line of credit. At that time, and he put an “internal note” on our file. We tried again to apply for line of credit (now that we own our home, as we were renting previously), and we were told that Scotia has this note, and it will be likely we will not get a line of credit from them because of it. On our credit bureaus, our public record is clear and this is not indicated anywhere. Can Scotia do this? Again, they were never one of our creditors and we opened an account there while we were in the process of credit re-building etc, but it did not affect them giving us a bank account. Do we have any recourse in asking for this “internal note” to be removed? It seems like it is a violation of our privacy.
Unfortunately, this sounds like corporate policy at Scotia, as opposed to some legal restriction. I suppose you might try complaining to the Ombudsman for BC about the bank’s practices. Given that your record is clear now, why not simply apply elsewhere?
Hello Ted Michalos,
I had the …… and she now goes to bankruptcy. However, I knew her daughter’s house is of hers who bought from my money. She always working under a table with many nails Salons with a basic salary of around a minimum 120$ – 140$/day with 50% commission if she works with more clients per day.
For example nails boss pays her 120$/day, she has to work with clients with a total is 240$/day. if she earns more than 240$/day. The money earned over will be given her 50% + 120$. Moreover, the total money/day will be paid by cheque is 50$ and 50% by cash.
She is working minimum is 3000$- 4000$/ month. However, she only declared very little.
She is working full time with 5 days from Tuesday to Saturday with 140$/day( i knew).
But in her bankruptcy. she only works part-time, etc.
Please give me some good advice! how could I get back the legal money that she stole from me?
Please contact me as soon as possible with my email XXXXXXXX
Best Regard,
I am not sure I can provide you with much help. If you are convinced the person is not reporting all of their income to their trustee you should contact the trustee and raise your concerns. It would be helpful if you could prove it, rather than just speculating, but the trustee dealing with the file will decide what follow-up needs to be done. As far as recovering your money, you need to decide how involved in the bankruptcy you want to become. Your best bet may be to “oppose” the person’s discharge which will require you to attend in Court. The Court has the ability to require the bankrupt to pay whatever amount the Court feels is reasonable. Of course, the Court may decide nothing extra is reasonable – it will depend on how persuasive your arguments are.
Hello MR,
I have made a consumer proposal in 2015 and all was accepted and fully paid and discharged. However the trustee have forgotten to list a creditor and he came back 3 years later and ask for money. He sued me and put legal mortgage against my house. I have sent by my trustee the documentation of the discharge last year and this stopped all legal action but the legal mortgage is still there. My lawyer asked this to be removed. Is the creditor entitle to the % that was given in 2015 to the others? And if so, do I have to pay 17 years of interest to him? And if so what would be the correct % Thanks for your advise. I have directed a lot of people to your site. Regards,
You’ll need to keep using your lawyer to get the mortgage removed. The creditor that was not listed (or paid) by your proposal can argue that they are entitled to the same rate of repayment that your other creditors received from your proposal. They might argue for interest, but it should not be allowed past the date you originally filed the proposal. One thing to watch out for – if the creditor can convince a Court that you deliberately didn’t list them in your proposal then the Court could rule that the entire debt plus interest is allowed. Just be careful how you say things when talking about the debt you didn’t list…
Hi Mr. Michalos,
Is there a statue of limitations on a bankruptcy? I declared bankruptcy almost 20 years ago but never completed my “duties”. I had a mental breakdown at the time and moved back to my home province, I contacted my trustee once I was feeling better, moved back to that province, and in less than 3 months had another breakdown and moved back home again. I’m not sure how long after, but I contacted them and asked them what we could arrange, she said she’d deal with me when I got back to that province. I wrote her back and told her that I don’t know if I will ever be back, and asked what I could do from here….she never responded, and never returned my phone calls. I tried to talk to a local trustee to take it over, and all they said was that I had to deal with the original trustee. Who still wouldn’t return my calls. And now almost 20 years later, I would like to know what if anything I can try again, or if there is a statute of limitations as to how long I am in “bankruptcy”.
Thank you for you time.
I am sorry, but there is no statute of limitations on a bankruptcy. You voluntarily assigned yourself into bankruptcy (20 years ago) in order to obtain relief from your debts and the only way out is to either complete the procedure or apply to the Court to have it annulled. If your original trustee won’t return your calls you might try contacting the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy and ask them for copies of your bankruptcy documents so you may at least determine what it is that you “didn’t do”. The next step would be to hire a lawyer to bring a motion to have a new discharge hearing. I suggest you make sure you complete whatever it was you didn’t do originally BEFORE you appear in Court, otherwise the judge will simply ask you to leave until you have completed your original duties. You are not alone in this situation – a few people every year fail to complete the process and end up in limbo like you. Juts take it one step at a time to complete the process now.
Hi Ted
I paid off my CP in November 2021. I have been abroad for the last 2 years,I have no address or family in Canada, so I have not been able to submit my certificate of full performance.
I finish my (job) contract mid December and then start a job in another country in March 2023. The post is not reliable here. I would have to use my employer as a care of address to forward my correspondence (which I would not like to do). I can mail or email the documents from my end to Equifax and TransUnion but do not have an address to receive mail. My other option is to just wait it out for another few years to return to Canada, which will just delay repairing my credit. I did have great difficulty renting an apartment in Ontario due to my CP. Is there a professional who could help me in this situation? Thanks
There probably isn’t. You could hire a lawyer (and hope they assign an assistant to keep the costs down). Sorry
Hello,
If one spouse is bankrupt due to unsecured debt and the other spouse is not and refuses to sell the marital home – can the sale be forced or is there any limitations to how long they both can reside there? The home was jointly owned.
Yes, the sale can be forced. When the first person filed for bankruptcy they “signed over” their interest in the house to their bankruptcy. The bankruptcy is entitled to whatever value has been assigned to their share of the equity. In most cases, the bankruptcy will try to sell the bankrupt’s share of the house to the non-bankrupt spouse, but if that person cannot afford to buy it then the bankruptcy may go to Court to force the sale of the house. This is the sort of thing you should discuss with a lawyer.