Free and low cost bankruptcy filing tools have gotten good. Some are run by nonprofits. Some are companies that charge a flat fee to type your forms for you.
Filing without a lawyer is legal. The court calls it filing pro se. Plenty of people do it and come out fine.
The real question is not whether you are allowed. It is whether your case is the kind that survives a mistake.
Where Doing It Yourself Usually Works
A no asset Chapter 7 with a simple picture is the best candidate:
- You rent, or you have no equity in your home
- Your car is worth less than the loan on it, or there is no car loan
- The debt is credit cards and medical bills
- Your income is clearly under the median for your household size
- Nobody has sued you and nothing is scheduled for sale
If all five are true, the forms are the hard part. Forms are exactly what these tools handle well.
The Kentucky Exemption Trap
Exemptions decide what you keep. Get them wrong and a trustee sells something you thought was safe.
Kentucky is a bad place to guess. The state homestead exemption protects only $5,000 of equity in a home, which is among the lowest in the country. Most filers here do better under the federal exemption set instead.
Worth knowing: Kentucky has a second thing also called a homestead exemption, worth about $49,100 for 2025 and 2026. That one is a property tax break for homeowners 65 and older. It has nothing to do with bankruptcy. People mix these up constantly, and so do some online guides.
Choosing the wrong set is not a typo you fix later. It is a decision locked in at filing. It is one of the first things the Nick Thompson law office in Louisville looks at, and it is the most common reason a simple looking case turns out not to be simple.
Timing Mistakes
Filing dates carry weight that nothing on the form tells you about.
Old income tax can be discharged, but only after three separate clocks run out. File a month early and the balance survives forever.
A foreclosure sale can be stopped by a case filed the day before. A case filed the day after cannot undo it.
Money paid to one creditor shortly before filing can be pulled back from that creditor. Paying off a family loan right before you file is a common and expensive mistake.
When It Is Not Really a Chapter 7
Some cases look like Chapter 7 and are not.
If you are behind on a mortgage and want to keep the house, Chapter 13 is the tool. If you owe recent tax, Chapter 13 handles it. If your income is over median, the means test gets complicated fast.
A filing tool will not tell you that you picked the wrong chapter. It will file exactly what you told it to file.
What the Court Will Not Do For You
Court staff cannot give legal advice. Neither can a trustee. Neither can a document preparer, and federal law limits what preparers may do and what they may charge.
The U.S. Trustee Program publishes a plain language guide to what happens in a bankruptcy case, and it says plainly that you may need legal advice. That is not marketing. That is the agency overseeing the system telling you where the line sits.
A Middle Path Most People Miss
The first consultation at most bankruptcy firms is free. That includes firms you have no intention of hiring.
You can sit down, get a straight read on whether your case is simple, and then go file it yourself. Nobody will chase you for it.
That hour costs nothing and answers the only question that matters.
The Honest Test
If you rent, owe credit cards, and nobody has sued you, a filing tool is probably fine.
If you own a home with equity, owe back taxes, have a sale date on the calendar, or someone signed a loan with you as a comaker, the savings are not really savings. Get eyes on it first.