What is the Automatic Stay & are there exceptions to it?
The filing of a bankruptcy automatically, by operation of law, implements a stay of all activity by creditors to collect debt from you. While the protection of the automatic stay prohibits creditors from taking any steps to collect a debt, as a practical matter, a creditor will not know about the filing of a bankruptcy petition for about two weeks from the date the bankruptcy is filed, because it takes approximately that long for the Bankruptcy Court to send out notices to the creditors. Accordingly, please direct any inquiry you may receive from a creditor to our office. If a creditor persists in attempting to collect a debt from you after you have advised him of the bankruptcy filing and to call our office, please get his/her name, address, & phone number, and let us know at once. Please note that there are several notable exceptions to the automatic stay. First, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 553, a bank, savings and loan, credit union, or other institution in which you have a deposit, is al
