In such cases, debtors need to make detailed filing of bankruptcy and must provide information such as name, gender, address, income, filing date, marital status and amount of lien and such claim must be filed with state, federal or county courts and the matter is subject of public concern and thus open for everyone to view. Thus, it is common for some companies to get the information from such records and make from such information a bankruptcy list.

Bankruptcy Claims

In addition to identifying persons as well as companies who have at some point in time applied for or filed bankruptcy claims, the bankruptcy list provides personal and financial information of each claim as well as the filing type and what the claim status is. The status of a claim can either be "filed," "dismissed" or "discharged." If a claim has been "filed," it has been submitted and is still active and under consideration. "Dismissed" claims have been terminated and are cases in which the subject is unable to pay off the debt. If a claim has been "discharged," it means that the debts were paid off and ultimately eliminated. The bankruptcy list is a complete record of a person or company's bankruptcy claims. Even in the case of a dismissed claim, the record is kept and available to the public upon request.

Assessing Credit Worthiness

The bankruptcy list is very important for businesses that depend on credit. A file for bankruptcy shows up on individual and company credit rating. Therefore, the bankruptcy list helps lenders form an opinion about the credit worthiness of an applicant who applies for credit. A lender such as a car dealer, mortgage financier, and credit card company makes great use of the bankruptcy list to determine the reliability of its customer. With the bankruptcy list, a lender can research credit histories of applicants so that they end up approving only those with good credit standing.

It is easy to see that bankruptcy lists allow many companies to identify people that have filed for bankruptcy and it is even possible to identify those persons or companies that have only recently filed for bankruptcy.

However, the bankruptcy list is mostly available only after paying a fee. The list does not contain exhaustive information, as it is generally compiled from databases from the entire country and contains information about millions of businesses as well as individuals. These bankruptcy lists can also be sorted based on status, address, name and even filing type.