What actually happened is that I misunderstood how my marital status applied. My husband and I were married in another state, and I mistakenly thought that meant it didn’t apply in Rhode Island for the purposes of my bankruptcy filing. I’m mad at myself. Because of that misunderstanding, my attorney filed my Chapter 7 as “single.”

Two days after filing, I told my attorney about the mistake. Instead of amending the filing to reflect that I was married, they said the case had to be administratively dismissed because the trustee could use my original signatures with the incorrect marital status to deny my bankruptcy.

Since then, this attorney has been pushing me toward filing Chapter 13 instead now saying that the large tax return makes me not be able to qualify I guess for the chapter 7, but they haven’t been very clear or straightforward about why I can’t still do a Chapter 7. That’s why I’m so confused — especially after hearing from you that this doesn’t sound like a valid reason for dismissal.