Earlier this month, Congress presented to the president the Bankruptcy Technical Corrections Act of 2010. This bill contained a variety of spelling, grammatical and punctuation changes to the Bankruptcy Code. Among its substantive provisions was a change to Section 109(h), the Code section having to do with mandatory pre-filing credit counseling.
Until now, Section109(h) required that consumer debtors obtain credit counseling “during the 180-day period preceding the date of filing of the petition.” Some judges interpreted this language to mean that credit counseling must be obtained at least 1 day prior to the actual day of filing.
Congress has clarified this confusion (I never thought I would type those words, but I digress….). The Technical Corrections Act deletes the word “preceding” and replaces it with “ending on.” The Code section now provides that credit counseling must be obtained “during the 180-day period ending on the date of filing of the petition.”
I still would not advise that you wait until the day of or the day before filing to obtain your credit counseling certificate, but now you know that you can.