The general rule in bankruptcy law is that you must list all of your creditors on your bankruptcy schedules that are filed with the Court. If your case has already been filed however, and you realize that you’ve forgotten a creditor, you may amend your schedules by adding a creditor. You will have to pay a court filing fee of $26 each time you add creditors. If your case has been closed however and you’ve already received your discharge (wipe-out) order from the Court, then you must file a motion to re-open the case in order to add the creditor. Currently, that reopening fee is $260 for a Chapter 7 case. Fortunately, in Pennsylvania, we have a liberal reopening policy and the Courts will generally permit cases to be reopened.

Sometimes, a bankruptcy filer may have listed a specific creditor, let’s say, a credit card company, and soon after the bankruptcy filing, he or she may receive a letter or phone call from a third-party debt collector acting on behalf of that credit card company. In that case, as long as the original credit card account was listed, then the schedules do not have to be amended, because the proper account was listed on the schedules.