Hi, I’m Mike Greiner. I’m a Bankruptcy Attorney here with The Financial Law Group located in Warren, Michigan in Macomb County. We’re located right at 12 mile and Hoover in Warren, Michigan. I want to talk to you today a little bit about the interaction of domestic relations law (divorce), in particular Michigan divorce and child support issues with bankruptcy. One thing I suggest to a lot of my clients is that before you actually go through a divorce, that the two of you – you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse file bankruptcy. What we can do through Michigan bankruptcy is we can get rid of your debts. Once you’ve gotten rid of your debts, and that’s one more issue that does not need to be dealt with through your divorce. Once you’re going through divorce, for example, you might have in your divorce decree an issue as to who’s gonna pay this debt, who’s gonna pay that debt. By just eliminating the debts so you don’t need to, then you don’t need to pay for any of them. And that can often be a very helpful thing that you’re going through the divorce process. Because there can be a lot of financial pressures as you’re going through a divorce.  One other reason why I suggest that is that once these issues have been finalized in the divorce decree.  Often times you can not get rid of those debts and bankruptcies. So often times, it makes sense to file bankruptcy first, get ride of those debts. And it’s just one more issue that doesn’t need to be dealt with in a divorce decree.

One more thing to bear in mind, too, is that even while you’re still a married couple. As a married couple, you can file a bankruptcy jointly. And it doesn’t cost any more to file jointly it, than it does individually. So if you wait until after your divorce. And essentially, you have just doubled your price to file bankruptcy to get rid of all these, to get ride of all these debts. So I think that’s an important thing to bear in mind when you’re, when you’re considering a divorce.

One more thing to bare in mind here. And I think this an important issue. Is that any liability that you have for child support is non dischargeable in bankruptcy so if you have any or if you have any ongoing debts with respect to child support that would not be discharged with the bankruptcy and it’s one thing that I think is important for ex-spouses to be aware of. The fact that your ex-spouse is filing bankcruptcy, that does not mean that any child support that’s owed to you is going to be wiped out.

If you want to find out more about bankruptcy or the relationship between bankruptcy and domestic relations law (Michigan Divorce), please feel free to call my office for your free consultation. My phone number is 586-693-2000 and my website is FinancialLawGroup.com.