Secured-creditor disclosure, creditor matrix consistency, claim amount and collateral description, lien-priority reporting, joint-secured-debt disclosure, and contingent / unliquidated / disputed flags.
Schedule D, captioned Creditors Who Have Claims Secured by Property on Official Form 106D, is the schedule by which an individual debtor identifies every creditor whose claim is secured by a lien against property of the estate. The disclosure is required by 11 U.S.C. Section 521(a)(1) and Bankruptcy Rule 1007. The schedule is the principal source from which the trustee, the court, and creditors themselves identify the encumbrances that constrain estate administration and the rights that have been preserved as of the petition date.
The definition of "secured claim" tracks 11 U.S.C. Section 506(a): a claim is secured to the extent of the value of the creditor's interest in the estate's interest in the collateral. A claim that exceeds the collateral value is bifurcated under Section 506(a) into a secured portion and an unsecured portion, and the unsecured portion is reported on Schedule E/F. Schedule D, however, reports the full contractual claim amount and the trustee or the court performs the bifurcation; the form does not invite the debtor to pre-decide Section 506(a) issues.
The categories of secured claims reportable on Schedule D include:
Each Schedule D line requires the creditor's name, mailing address, an account number (last four digits unless full disclosure is required by court order), the date the claim was incurred, a description of the collateral, the value of the collateral, the amount of the claim, and the unsecured portion of the claim if the debtor believes the claim is undersecured. Three check-boxes are provided for each line: contingent, unliquidated, and disputed. A separate check-box identifies whether the claim is held by a community creditor in a community-property state.
The contingent / unliquidated / disputed designators are substantive. Under Bankruptcy Rule 3003 and case-by-case judicial application in Chapter 7, a claim that is scheduled as not contingent, not unliquidated, and not disputed is generally deemed allowed without further proof-of-claim filing by the creditor; conversely, a claim that bears any of the three designators requires the creditor to file a proof of claim to participate in distribution. Defensive use of the designators - to require the creditor to come forward with documentation - is appropriate where the debtor lacks the original loan paperwork or where the debt has been transferred through multiple servicers.
The collateral description must be specific enough to identify the property unambiguously. For real estate, the address is sufficient (a legal description is helpful but not required on Schedule D; the legal description belongs on Schedule A/B). For vehicles, year, make, model, and VIN or last six characters of VIN are standard. For aggregated personal property pledged under a blanket security agreement, the description should track the security-agreement language as recorded in the perfecting UCC-1. A description so generic that the trustee cannot reconcile the lien to a specific Schedule A/B asset is grounds for objection.
Where a single asset is encumbered by multiple liens, Form 106D requires the debtor to list each lien separately. The form does not number the liens by priority in a dedicated field, but the description field should indicate priority order ("First mortgage on 123 Main St.," "Second mortgage on 123 Main St."), and the column for date-claim-incurred can be used to corroborate priority where state law follows a first-in-time-first-in-right rule. Federal tax liens take priority by date of NFTL filing under 26 U.S.C. Section 6323; judgment liens take priority by date of perfection under applicable state law; mortgage liens take priority by date of recording subject to state recording statutes and equitable subordination doctrines.
The total value of the collateral entered on Schedule D should match (or be reconcilable with) the value entered on Schedule A/B for the same asset. Discrepancies between the two schedules - a vehicle listed at $12,000 on Schedule A/B and $8,000 on Schedule D as collateral for a $15,000 secured claim, for example - signal a categorization error, an inadvertent under-valuation on one schedule, or a misstatement of the encumbrance. Trustees routinely cross-tab the two schedules during the case-administration review.
Every creditor listed on any schedule must also appear on the creditor matrix filed under Bankruptcy Rule 1007(a)(1) and any applicable local rule. The matrix is the bulk-mailing list used by the clerk to serve the notice of commencement, the notice of the 341 meeting, and all subsequent case notices. A secured creditor omitted from the matrix is at risk of nonreceipt of the notice of commencement, which has significant consequences for the dischargeability analysis under Section 523(a)(3) - a debt of a creditor not duly scheduled in time to allow timely filing of a proof of claim or timely filing of a Section 523(a)(2), (4), or (6) complaint is nondischargeable.
Many districts impose specific formatting rules for the matrix (alphabetical order, no punctuation in addresses, ZIP+4 required, etc.). A debtor who lists a creditor on Schedule D with a notice address that differs from the matrix address has created an inconsistency the trustee may flag. The proper notice address is the address designated by the creditor for the purpose of receiving notices in the bankruptcy case - frequently the address that appears on the most recent monthly statement, the address designated under Section 342(c) on account-billing communications, or the address registered with the court for noticing purposes under Section 342(f).
Where a secured debt is owed jointly with a non-debtor (typically a spouse not filing or a co-signing parent), the creditor is listed on Schedule D and the co-obligor is identified on Schedule H (Form 106H) with cross-reference back to the relevant Schedule D entry. The debtor's discharge under Section 727 (Chapter 7) or Section 1328 (Chapter 13) does not release the non-debtor co-obligor; the creditor retains the right to pursue the co-obligor in personam after the case. In Chapter 13, the codebtor stay under Section 1301 provides interim protection for consumer-debt codebtors that does not apply in Chapter 7.
Schedule D is closely paired with the Statement of Intention on Official Form 108, which an individual Chapter 7 debtor must file within thirty days of the petition (or by the date of the 341 meeting, whichever is earlier) indicating, for each consumer debt secured by property of the estate, whether the debtor intends to surrender the collateral, redeem it under Section 722, reaffirm the debt under Section 524(c), or claim the collateral as exempt and treat it under the available exemption framework. The intention election is not binding for the debtor but failure to perform within the required time-frame under Section 521(a)(2) can lift the automatic stay as to the collateral under Section 362(h).
Schedule D is a coordinating document. Each entry must reconcile to a Schedule A/B asset, must appear on the creditor matrix with a consistent notice address, must coordinate with any codebtor entry on Schedule H, and must align with the surrender / reaffirm / redeem election on the Statement of Intention. Errors in any single field propagate through the entire administration. The schedule rewards careful first-filing more than it rewards aggressive amendment.
This page provides general information about Official Form 106D and the secured-claim disclosure obligations of individual debtors. It does not constitute legal advice. Lien-priority, collateral-valuation, and bifurcation analyses should be evaluated by qualified counsel.
Last modified: 2026-05-22