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Statement of Financial Affairs for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy (Official Form 107)    

Your Statement of Financial Affairs for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy, provides a summary of your financial history over certain periods of time before you file for bankruptcy. If you are an individual in a bankruptcy case, you must fill out this statement.  11 U.S.C. § 521(a) and Bankruptcy Rule 1007(b)(1).  

If you are married and your spouse is not filing this case with you, you need only provide information on this form about your spouse if you are filing under chapter 12 or chapter 13 and are not separated from your spouse.  

If you are in business as a sole proprietor, partner, family farmer, or self-employed professional, you must provide the information about all of your business and personal financial activities.  

Although this statement may ask you questions that are similar to some questions on the schedules, you must fill out all of the forms completely to protect your legal rights.  

Understand the terms used in this form  

Legal equivalent of a spouse — A person whom applicable nonfederal law recognizes as having a relationship with the debtor that grants legal rights and responsibilities equivalent, in whole or in part, to those granted to a spouse.

 

COMMITTEE NOTE

Official Form 107, Statement of Financial Affairs for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy, which applies only in cases of individual debtors, is revised in its entirety as part of the Forms Modernization Project, making it easier to read and, as a result, likely to generate more complete and accurate responses. 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. Therefore, many of the open-ended questions and multiplepart instructions have been replaced with more specific questions. In addition, the form is renumbered to distinguish it from the version to be used in non-individual cases, and stylistic changes were made throughout the form.

The form is derived from former Official Form 7, Statement of Financial Affairs. The new form uses eleven sections likely to be more understandable to non-lawyers, groups questions of a similar nature together, and eliminates questions unrelated to individual debtors. The new form deletes the instruction, previously found in many questions, that married debtors filing under chapter 12 or chapter 13 must include information applicable to their spouse, even if their spouse is not filing with them, unless the spouses are separated. This change was made because a non-filing spouse’s general financial affairs are not relevant to the debtor’s bankruptcy case. 

Part 1, Give Details About Your Marital Status and Where You Lived Before, moves the questions regarding the debtor’s prior addresses, as well as residences in a community property state, to the beginning of the form. The form eliminates the “name used” question in reference to prior addresses. Also, the debtor is no longer required to list the name of a spouse or former spouse who lived with the debtor in a community property state since that information will be provided in Official Form 106H.   

Part 2, Explain the Sources of Your Income, consolidates the questions regarding income, adding “wages, commissions, bonuses, tips” as a category for sources of income, and it eliminates the option to report income on a fiscal year basis. In addition, the form provides examples of types of “other income.” The time period is clarified to indicate that the prior two years means two calendar years, plus the portion of the calendar year in which the bankruptcy is filed. 

Part 3, List Certain Payments You Made Before You Filed for Bankruptcy, includes questions related to payments made in the 90 days prior to bankruptcy, with a separate question for payments made to insiders within one year before filing for bankruptcy. The statutory definition of consumer debt is provided. The question regarding the nature of the debtor’s debts requires the debtor to use checkboxes to indicate whether or not they are primarily consumer debts. The form instructs debtors not to include payments for domestic support obligations in the section regarding insider payments. The form provides a separate question regarding payments or transfers on account of a debt that benefited an insider. For both questions regarding payments to insiders, the debtor is required to provide a reason for the payment. Partnerships of which the debtor is a general partner have been added to the examples of “insiders.”

Part 4, Identify Legal Actions, Repossessions, and Foreclosures, consolidates questions regarding actions against the debtor’s property. The form provides examples of types of legal actions, and requires the debtor to indicate the status of any action. The form adds the requirements that a debtor include any property levied on within a year of filing for bankruptcy and that the debtor provide the last four digits of any account number for any setoffs. Also, a debtor must list any assignment for the benefit of creditors made within one year of filing for bankruptcy. 

Part 5, List Certain Gifts and Contributions, changes the reporting threshold to $600 per person or charity and increases the look-back period from one to two years. 

Part 6, List Certain Losses, clarifies how to report insurance coverage for losses. It provides that the debtor must include on this form amounts of insurance that have been paid, but must list pending insurance claims on Official Form 106A/B.

Part 7, List Certain Payments or Transfers, includes questions regarding payments or transfers of property by the debtor. The question regarding payments or transfers to anyone who was consulted about seeking bankruptcy or preparing a bankruptcy petition requires the email or website address of the person who was paid, as well as the name of the person who made the payment if it was not the debtor. There is a separate question asked about payments or transfers to anyone who promised to help the debtor deal with creditors or make payments to creditors, reminding the debtor not to include any payments or transfers already listed. Also, the debtor must list any transfers of property, outright or for security purposes, made within two years of filing for bankruptcy, unless the transfer was made in the ordinary course of the debtor’s business. There is a reminder not to list gifts or other transfers already included elsewhere on the form. The question regarding self-settled trusts adds an explanation that such trusts are often referred to as asset-protection devices. 

Part 8, List Certain Financial Accounts, Safe Deposit Boxes, and Storage Units, adds money market accounts to the examples provided for the question regarding financial accounts or instruments and removes “other instruments” from the examples. Also, the form adds a question about whether the debtor has or had property stored in a storage unit within one year of filing for bankruptcy. The debtor must provide the name and address of the storage facility and anyone who has or had access to the unit, as well as a description of the contents and whether the debtor still has access to the storage unit. Storage units that are part of the building in which the debtor resides are excluded.

Part 9, Identify Property You Hold or Control for Someone Else, instructs that the debtor should include any property that the debtor borrowed from, is storing for, or is holding in trust for someone.

Part 10, Give Details About Environmental Information, requires the debtor to list the case title and nature of the case for any judicial or administrative proceeding under any environmental law and to indicate the status of the case. 

Part 11, Give Details About Your Business or Connections to Any Business, eliminates instructions that apply only to corporations and partnerships. The debtor must indicate if, within four years (previously six years) before filing for bankruptcy, the debtor owned a business or had certain connections to a business, with five categories of businesses provided as checkboxes. If the debtor has a connection to a business, the debtor must list the name, address, nature, and Employer Identification number of the business, the dates the business existed, and the name of an accountant or bookkeeper for the business. Accounting information requested is truncated; the debtor is simply required to provide the name of the business bookkeeper or accountant. 

Part 12, Sign Below, eliminates the signature boxes for a partnership or corporation and a non-attorney bankruptcy petition preparer. Also, the debtor is asked to indicate through checkboxes whether additional pages are attached to the form.  


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Jurisdictional relevance: US

Legal Consumer - Rockdale County, GALaw. The content of this article pertains to all US states and counties.