How to look up bankruptcy law: One honest sentence.
Here is how to look up bankruptcy law in under an hour for most countries. Decide your structure, open your government's official insolvency page, then fill one sentence. Your number should be yours, not an average from a study.
First, choose your structure.
Would you trade in your own name or through a limited company? If it is your own name, your worst case sits in personal insolvency law. With a company, the company usually carries its own debts. However, guarantees and director duties around unpaid taxes still matter. Don't know yet? Then do both.
How to look up bankruptcy law from official sources.
Skip law firm blogs and forums. Personal insolvency rules by country live on government pages: the GOV.UK guide to becoming bankrupt, or the US federal courts' Bankruptcy Basics. In Spain, search the BOE for exoneración del pasivo insatisfecho. In Mexico, start with the Cámara de Diputados' federal law collection.
Elsewhere, search your language's words for personal insolvency plus your government's name. Treat that official bankruptcy guide as your only source.
Fill in the two blanks.
Write: if my business failed, the legal worst case would be ______, and it would follow me for ______. An invented founder in England might write bankruptcy, usually ending after 12 months, with 6 years on her credit file. Meanwhile, a founder in Mexico writes a harder sentence, yet it still has edges. Expect relief first, then suspicion.
Practise how to look up bankruptcy law tonight.
Open your government's official insolvency page and note its date.
Fill both blanks of the sentence, then copy the page address underneath.
From the book.
I'll admit what I think happens next for a lot of people, because it's worth preparing for. The first reaction to a real legal sentence is often relief, and the second is suspicion. It seems too simple, so there must be a catch somewhere. Sometimes there is, and the sections below are full of catches. But a real sentence you can argue with beats an imaginary one you keep obeying, and I suspect you will find that most of the catches are smaller than the fear they replace.
I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward, chapter 5: The worst case is written in a law you have never read
Questions about how to look up bankruptcy law.
How to look up bankruptcy law if I trade through a company?
Check what you sign personally, like guarantees, and the duties directors carry, especially around unpaid taxes.
How long does this research take?
For most countries, probably under an hour. Compare that with the months or years you spent afraid.
What if the sentence seems too simple?
Sometimes there is a catch. Still, a real sentence you can argue with beats an imaginary one you obey.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 5, “The worst case is written in a law you have never read”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Can you go to jail for debt: What the law says.
- 02 What bankruptcy takes from you: Costs that remain.
- 03 How to look up bankruptcy law: One honest sentence.
- 04 How long does bankruptcy last: Five legal answers.
- 05 Bankruptcy law and entrepreneurship: The evidence.
- 06 Charles Dickens debtors prison: Then and now.
- 07 No personal bankruptcy in my country: What to do.
- 08 Fear of losing everything: Draw a legal border.