When can I buy a house after bankruptcy?

There is no waiting period in the Bankruptcy Code, and we do not publish a verified figure for every mortgage program, so we will not quote one. What federal law does set is how long the case may be reported: under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1), a consumer reporting agency may not report a case that antedates the report by more than ten years. Lenders and loan programs set their own seasoning requirements — ask a lender or a housing counselor for the current rule.

How long does a chapter 7 bankruptcy stay on my credit report?

Up to ten years. 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1) bars a consumer reporting agency from making a report containing a title 11 case that antedates the report by more than ten years from entry of the order for relief. Most other adverse items — civil judgments, paid tax liens, accounts placed for collection — run on a seven-year clock under the same section. The bankruptcy court does not report any of this to the bureaus.

Can a creditor still call me about a discharged debt?

Not if the debt was actually discharged. 11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2) makes the discharge an injunction against commencing or continuing an action, employing process, or taking any act to collect that debt as your personal liability. Collection activity on a discharged debt is a violation of a court order. Debts excepted under 11 U.S.C. § 523 are a different matter — those were never discharged and remain collectible.

Does the discharge get rid of a lien on my car or house?

Generally not on its own. A discharge relieves personal liability for the debt, while a valid lien that existed before filing generally passes through the case unaffected, which is why a mortgage or vehicle lender keeps its rights in the collateral. Other Bankruptcy Code provisions can separately affect lien or secured-claim treatment, and courts note that certain liens may be avoided or addressed through a plan. That turns on your file.

How do I fix a credit-report error after discharge?

Dispute it with the consumer reporting agency. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, the agency must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation free of charge and either record the current status of the disputed information or delete the item before the end of the 30-day period beginning when it receives your notice. That period may be extended by not more than 15 additional days if you supply relevant information during it. The agency must notify the furnisher within 5 business days.

When could I file again?

It depends on the chapter and on the prior case. Court publications describe a chapter 7 discharge as available once every eight years, and one district's pro se guide frames chapter 7 eligibility as requiring that the filer has not received a chapter 7 discharge within 8 years, or a chapter 12 or chapter 13 discharge in a case commenced within 6 years, unless certain requirements are met. Confirm the arithmetic for your own filing dates with a lawyer.

Credit & life after bankruptcy

Life After Bankruptcy: Common Questions About Discharge, Credit, and What Comes Next

After a discharge, 11 U.S.C. § 524 voids judgments to the extent they determine your personal liability on discharged debts and bars creditors from collecting those debts from you personally. Debts excepted under 11 U.S.C. § 523, and valid liens, generally survive. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1), a consumer reporting agency may not report a case that antedates the report by more than ten years.

Key points

A discharge operates as an injunction against acts to collect a discharged debt as your personal liability (11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2)).
Discharge reaches personal liability, not liens: a valid lien that existed before filing generally passes through the case unaffected.
Debts excepted under 11 U.S.C. § 523 — including most taxes, domestic support obligations, and most student loans — remain owed after the case ends.
15 U.S.C. § 1681c limits reporting: more than ten years for the case itself, and seven years for most other adverse items.
Nothing in the Bankruptcy Code sets a waiting period before you can apply for a mortgage; lender and loan-program guidelines do, and we do not publish a verified figure for every program.

The case is over, or nearly over, and the questions change. Instead of what happens if I file, it becomes what actually ended, what did not, and how long any of it follows you. This page answers the common ones from federal law and official court guidance, and says plainly where we cannot give you a verified figure.

What actually changes on the day the discharge is entered?

A discharge is a court order, and 11 U.S.C. § 524 describes exactly what it does. Subsection (a)(1) voids any judgment to the extent it determines your personal liability on a discharged debt. Subsection (a)(2) turns the discharge into an injunction: creditors may not commence or continue an action, employ process, or take any act to collect a discharged debt as your personal liability. Subsection (a)(3) adds a parallel injunction covering certain community property you acquire after the case begins.

What the discharge does not do matters just as much. It addresses personal liability, not liens. A valid lien that existed before you filed generally passes through the case unaffected, so a lender with a mortgage or a car loan keeps its rights against that collateral (Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor). And debts listed in 11 U.S.C. § 523 are excepted from discharge entirely, so they remain owed after the case ends.

What changes the answer from one person to the next?

Two people leaving bankruptcy can have very different next years. A few variables drive most of the difference.

The chapter matters. A chapter 7 discharge and a chapter 13 discharge are granted at different points and cover different debts; the Middle District of Florida's public FAQ notes the chapter 13 discharge is broader than the chapter 7 discharge. In a chapter 7 case, the deadline for creditors to object to discharge is generally 60 days after the date first scheduled for the meeting of creditors.

Whether a debt was listed matters. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(3) excepts a debt that was neither listed nor scheduled in time for the creditor to act.

Whether you reaffirmed matters. Under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c), a reaffirmation agreement can leave you personally liable on a debt the discharge would otherwise have reached.

Timing matters too: property acquired by inheritance or as a life-insurance beneficiary within 180 days after the petition is included in the estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541.

What does federal law say about bankruptcy on your credit report?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, not the Bankruptcy Code, governs how long the filing itself can follow you.

Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1), a consumer reporting agency may not make a consumer report containing a case under title 11 that antedates the report by more than ten years. Other adverse items run on a shorter clock: civil suits and civil judgments, paid tax liens, accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss, and other adverse information generally drop off after seven years under § 1681c(a)(2)–(5).

15 U.S.C. § 1681b limits who may obtain the report at all. Among the permissible purposes are a credit transaction involving you, employment purposes, insurance underwriting, a determination of eligibility for a government license or benefit, and a legitimate business need in a transaction you initiate.

The bankruptcy court does not report any of this to the credit bureaus; bankruptcy filings are public records.

Reporting limits under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)
Item of information	Outer reporting limit
Case under title 11 or the Bankruptcy Act	More than 10 years from entry of the order for relief or the date of adjudication
Civil suits, civil judgments, records of arrest	More than 7 years from date of entry, or until the governing statute of limitations expires, whichever is longer
Paid tax liens	More than 7 years from date of payment
Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss	More than 7 years
Any other adverse item (other than records of convictions of crimes)	More than 7 years

Where do state or local rules change the picture?

Federal law does the heavy lifting here. Discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 524 and the reporting limits in 15 U.S.C. § 1681c apply the same way in every state.

Three things do vary. First, who administers the case: in most districts that is the U.S. Trustee, but in Alabama and North Carolina it is the Bankruptcy Administrator. Second, what you were able to keep. One district's public information sheet explains that a filer may be able to keep some personal items and possibly real estate depending on the law of the state where they live and applicable federal laws, so exemption rules come from both federal and state sources. The amounts belong on our state pages, not here. Third, a debt that was not discharged is collected under state-law remedies, so garnishment and judgment-lien practice differ from state to state.

Local rules and clerk procedures also differ district by district.

What does the first year after a chapter 7 discharge look like?

Here is the sequence, not a forecast. The automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362, which ran while the case was open, gives way to the discharge injunction.

The discharge order is entered and mailed to the creditors on your list. From that point 11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2) bars them from calling, suing, or otherwise acting to collect that debt as your personal liability. If a discharged creditor keeps collecting, that is a violation of a court order, and it is worth raising with the lawyer who handled the case or with the court.

Debts excepted under 11 U.S.C. § 523 keep running, and so do secured obligations you chose to keep paying.

Nothing in the discharge stops you from applying for credit, and nothing requires a lender to grant it. A lender may consider the report for as long as 15 U.S.C. § 1681c permits it to appear.

Court publications commonly list as nondischargeable: most taxes, child support, alimony, most student loans, court fines and criminal restitution, and personal injury caused by driving while intoxicated.
A debt not listed in your schedules may fall outside the discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(3).
Property you acquire after the case commences is generally not property of the estate, subject to the 180-day rule in 11 U.S.C. § 541.

What documents and records should you keep after the case closes?

Keep a small file after the case closes; the same documents come up again and again. The discharge order is the one a creditor or a lender is most likely to ask for, because it is the court order that ends personal liability on the debts it covers. Your petition, schedules, and statement of financial affairs show what was listed, which matters because 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(3) excepts a debt that was neither listed nor scheduled in time for the creditor to act. Keep the creditor mailing list with them. Keep the certificates for the credit counseling taken before filing and the debtor education course taken afterward. Finally, pull your consumer report from each nationwide agency and read it against the discharge order. If you need another copy of a court document, the clerk's office and PACER can supply one for a per-page fee.

Check that each discharged account is reported consistently with the discharge order.
Check the reported date of the case against the outer limit in 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1).
Keep a copy of anything you send to a consumer reporting agency, and the date you sent it.

What should you ask a bankruptcy lawyer about life after discharge?

We can describe what the law provides. We cannot tell you what to do with it, and a page cannot see your file. A bankruptcy lawyer in your district can, and the questions below are the ones that tend to decide how the next few years go. Two of them are worth flagging. The first is lien survival: because a discharge reaches personal liability rather than the lien itself, the answer for a house or a car often turns on facts a lawyer needs your paperwork to see. The second is reaffirmation, since an agreement signed under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c) can leave a debt alive that the discharge would otherwise have covered. If cost is the obstacle, several bankruptcy courts publish legal-aid and bar-referral contacts on their public pages, including the Middle District of Louisiana.

Which of my debts were discharged, and which fall under 11 U.S.C. § 523?
Did any lien survive the case, and what options exist if it did?
Did I reaffirm anything under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c), and what am I still liable on?
A creditor is still contacting me about a listed debt — is that a discharge-injunction problem?
My consumer report shows the case or an account incorrectly; how does the 15 U.S.C. § 1681i dispute process apply here?
Under what timing could I file again, and under which chapter?

Frequently asked questions

When can I buy a house after bankruptcy?: There is no waiting period in the Bankruptcy Code, and we do not publish a verified figure for every mortgage program, so we will not quote one. What federal law does set is how long the case may be reported: under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1), a consumer reporting agency may not report a case that antedates the report by more than ten years. Lenders and loan programs set their own seasoning requirements — ask a lender or a housing counselor for the current rule.
How long does a chapter 7 bankruptcy stay on my credit report?: Up to ten years. 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(1) bars a consumer reporting agency from making a report containing a title 11 case that antedates the report by more than ten years from entry of the order for relief. Most other adverse items — civil judgments, paid tax liens, accounts placed for collection — run on a seven-year clock under the same section. The bankruptcy court does not report any of this to the bureaus.
Can a creditor still call me about a discharged debt?: Not if the debt was actually discharged. 11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2) makes the discharge an injunction against commencing or continuing an action, employing process, or taking any act to collect that debt as your personal liability. Collection activity on a discharged debt is a violation of a court order. Debts excepted under 11 U.S.C. § 523 are a different matter — those were never discharged and remain collectible.
Does the discharge get rid of a lien on my car or house?: Generally not on its own. A discharge relieves personal liability for the debt, while a valid lien that existed before filing generally passes through the case unaffected, which is why a mortgage or vehicle lender keeps its rights in the collateral. Other Bankruptcy Code provisions can separately affect lien or secured-claim treatment, and courts note that certain liens may be avoided or addressed through a plan. That turns on your file.
How do I fix a credit-report error after discharge?: Dispute it with the consumer reporting agency. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, the agency must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation free of charge and either record the current status of the disputed information or delete the item before the end of the 30-day period beginning when it receives your notice. That period may be extended by not more than 15 additional days if you supply relevant information during it. The agency must notify the furnisher within 5 business days.
When could I file again?: It depends on the chapter and on the prior case. Court publications describe a chapter 7 discharge as available once every eight years, and one district's pro se guide frames chapter 7 eligibility as requiring that the filer has not received a chapter 7 discharge within 8 years, or a chapter 12 or chapter 13 discharge in a case commenced within 6 years, unless certain requirements are met. Confirm the arithmetic for your own filing dates with a lawyer.

Sources

11 U.S.C. § 524 — Effect of discharge · official source
11 U.S.C. § 523 — Exceptions to discharge · official source
11 U.S.C. § 541 — Property of the estate · official source
11 U.S.C. § 362 — Automatic stay · official source
15 U.S.C. § 1681c — Requirements relating to information contained in consumer reports
15 U.S.C. § 1681b — Permissible purposes of consumer reports
15 U.S.C. § 1681i — Procedure in case of disputed accuracy
Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor
Bankr. M.D. Fla. official page — Frequently Asked Questions
D. Guam Bankruptcy Bankruptcy Information Sheet
Bankruptcy Administrator for the Northern District of Alabama, Statement of Information
North Carolina Eastern Pro Se Bankruptcy Guide (September 2025)
U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Ariz., Choosing Your Chapter: What can Bankruptcy do for you? What will it do to you?
Bankr. N.D. Ill. official page — FAQs
Bankr. M.D. La. official guidance — Frequently Asked Questions
Debtor FAQs

By Antonio G. Jimenez, Esq. · Florida Bar No. 21022

Sources verified August 2, 2026 · How we verify

Every figure on this page is drawn from a primary legal source and checked against our canonical legal database before publication. Bankruptcy.law is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

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