Whenever I meet with anyone that is considering making a consumer proposal or filing personal bankruptcy I always recommend that they do their personal banking at a bank where they don’t owe any money.  In many cases this means opening a new bank account at a different bank.  This is because when you make a consumer proposal or file personal bankruptcy all of your creditors are notified which includes your bank if you owe them money.  If your bank gets copies of your consumer proposal or bankruptcy documents it will affect the way they do business with you.  Your bank may freeze your bank account and/or seize any money in the account.  Since the purpose of making a consumer proposal or filing personal bankruptcy is to help you to get a fresh start the last thing you want to do is fight with your bank after filing.  The simplest way to avoid any issues is to make sure that you are banking at a bank where you don’t owe any money.  The old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” definitely applies in this case.

-Chris Welker