From Andrew (I swear he could run that place on his own)
The way we handle "threats" of bankruptcy (for lack of a better word)
is
that we ask the borrower for the name of their BK attorney and their
case number. Then we call the attorney and confirm that the person has,
in fact, started the process. As soon as we've confirmed with the
attorney, we'll mark the loan as BK.
99% of the time, the bankruptcy continues as promised. The other 1%,
something like this happens, and the default is delayed.
The reason we are so conservative (that is, marking loans as BK before
the borrower may have actually filed) is because the penalty for dunning
(requesting payment from) a borrower who has filed BK is quite high.
Hope that helps explain it.
Andrew
That's cool with me and makes sense.
Actually, this doesn't make sense to me. Andrew said they get the name of the BK attorney and the case number. Well, the case number is assigned by the clerk when a BK petition is filed with the court. So if the BK wasn't filed, there couldn't be a case number. Moreover, he said they speak with the attorney. Is he suggesting that the attorney lied about the BK petition having been filed? I find that very hard to believe (that would get the lawyer in trouble with the State Bar). OTOH, if the attorney said "no petition has been filed yet, but we plan to soon," then it is not a violation of the automatic stay to take collection activity.
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that the "quite high" penalty for violating the automatic stay doesn't take effect until the creditor knows that the BK was filed (by being served with the papers, or by being served by the BK court which uses the borrowers list of creditors to notify them all of the BK).