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There are no speicific instructions for Official Form 101, but there are notes from the committee that rewrote the forms that were adopted in December 2015.

These notes describe the purpose of the form and how it differs from the earlier form it replaced.

COMMITTEE NOTE

Official Form 101, Voluntary Petition for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy, applies only in cases of individual debtors. Form 101 replaces Official Form 1, Voluntary Petition. It is renumbered to distinguish it from the forms used by non-individual debtors, such as corporations, and includes stylistic changes throughout the form. It is revised as part of the Forms Modernization Project, making it easier to read and, as a result, likely to generate more complete and accurate responses. Because the goals of the Forms Modernization Project include improving the interface between technology and the forms so as to increase efficiency and reduce the need to produce the same information in multiple formats, many of the open-ended questions and multiple-part instructions have been replaced with more specific questions.

Official Form 101 has been substantially reorganized. References to Exhibits A, B, C, and D, and the exhibits themselves, have been eliminated because the requested information is now asked in the form or is not applicable to individual debtors.

Part 1, Identify Yourself, line 6, replaces the venue box from page 2 of Official Form 1 and deletes venue questions that pertain only to non-individuals.

Part 2, Tell the Court About Your Bankruptcy Case, line 7, removes choices for chapters 9 and 15 filings because they do not pertain to individuals. The status of “being filed” is added to the question regarding bankruptcy cases pending or filed by a spouse, business partner, or affiliate (line 10). Lastly, the question “Do you rent your residence?” (line 11) and Official Forms 101A, Initial Statement About an Eviction Judgment Against You, and 101B, Statement About Payment of an Eviction Judgment Against You, replace “certification by a debtor who resides as a tenant of residential property,” on page 2 of Official Form 1. 

Part 3, Report About Any Businesses You Own as a Sole Proprietor, line 12, incorporates options from the “nature of business” box from page 1 of Official Form 1 that would apply to individual debtors, thus eliminating checkboxes for railroads and clearing banks. Part 3, line 13, also eliminates a checkbox to report whether a plan was filed with the petition, or if plan acceptances were solicited prepetition. Additionally, line 13 rephrases the question relating to whether a debtor filing under Chapter 11 is a small business debtor.

Part 4, Report if You Own or Have Any Hazardous Property or Any Property That Needs Immediate Attention, line 14, replaces Exhibit C from Official Form 1 and adds the category of “property that needs immediate attention.”

Part 5, Explain Your Efforts to Receive a Briefing About Credit Counseling (line 15), replaces Exhibit D from Official Form 1. Additionally, this part describes incapacity and disability using a simplified definition, tells the debtor of the ability to file a motion for a waiver, and eliminates statutory reference about districts where credit counseling does not apply because such districts are rare.

Part 6, Answer These Questions for Reporting Purposes (line 16c), provides a text field for the debtor to describe the type of debts owed if the debtor believes they are neither primarily consumer nor business debts.

Part 7, Sign Below, deletes from the debtor’s declaration the phrase “to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief” in order to conform to the language of 28 U.S.C. § 1746. See Rule 1008. This part combines the two attorney signature blocks into one certification and eliminates signature lines for corporations/partnerships and chapter 15 Foreign Representative. The declaration and signature section for a non-attorney bankruptcy petition preparer (BPP) has also been removed as unnecessary. The same declaration, required under 11 U.S.C. §110, is contained in Official Form 119. That form must be completed and signed by the BPP and filed with each document prepared by a BPP.

 


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Jurisdictional relevance: US

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