Introduction to bankruptcy

What is bankruptcy?

Bankruptcy is a process where people who cannot pay their debts give up their assets and control of their finances, either by agreement or court order, in exchange for protection from legal action by their creditors.

Which court?

A bankruptcy case may be heard by the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court. Most bankruptcy cases are heard by the Federal Circuit Court. The rules, forms and procedures are the same in each court for bankruptcy cases.

Forms and guides

The Court has published guides to assist practitioners and parties in this area of law. These guides relate to Registrar matters. The Guide for Practitioners and Parties in Bankruptcy Matters listed before a Registrar summarises the arrangements for Bankruptcy matters in a Registrar’s list in detail. This information is support by a number of information sheets and a checklist for a Creditor’s Petition.

Forms are available on the bankruptcy forms page (for example, Form B6 of the Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016). Click on the name of the form (for example, Creditor’s Petition). This link will open the form in .docx or .pdf. You can then fill out, save and print out the form on your own computer.

Fees

A filing fee applies for filing some bankruptcy forms.

If you cannot afford this fee, you may be able to ask the Court to exempt you from having to pay it or to defer the time for its payment. You can get a form to ask the Court to either exempt or defer payment and information about the circumstances where an exemption or deferral can be given on the Exemptions and deferral of fees pages or from the Registry.