Joint-and-several liability disclosure, community-property states, the Chapter 13 codebtor stay, and divorce-decree allocations that survive discharge.
Schedule H is the schedule on which an individual debtor identifies any person or entity other than a spouse who is also liable on any of the debts the debtor lists on Schedules D, E/F, or G. The form is short. Each entry pairs a codebtor with the creditor and identifies which schedule and which line item the codebtor relates to. The codebtor's address is required so the trustee, the creditor, and (in Chapter 13) the court can give the codebtor any notice owed.
Schedule H is the predicate for several downstream effects: it triggers the Section 1301 codebtor stay in Chapter 13; it surfaces community-property issues that affect what becomes property of the estate under Section 541(a)(2); it allows the creditor to assess whether to continue collection efforts against the non-debtor codebtor; and (in Chapter 7) it identifies persons whose own credit may be reported on for the joint obligation post-discharge.
Most consumer debts on which more than one person is liable are jointly and severally liable. Joint signers on a credit-card application, co-borrowers on an auto loan, comakers on a personal loan, and co-tenants on a residential lease are all typically jointly and severally liable to the creditor. The creditor may collect the entire balance from any one signer; the signers' rights against each other are a matter of contribution and indemnity outside bankruptcy.
The debtor's discharge under Section 524(e) does not affect the liability of any other entity for the debt. A non-debtor codebtor remains fully liable post-discharge for the entire balance. This is the fundamental asymmetry Schedule H makes visible: the debtor's bankruptcy is not the codebtor's bankruptcy, and the creditor's right to collect from the non-debtor codebtor is not extinguished by the discharge of the debtor.
In community-property states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Alaska for spouses electing community treatment), debts incurred by either spouse during marriage are typically community obligations payable from community property regardless of which spouse signed the underlying instrument. The non-filing spouse's interest in community property becomes property of the estate under Section 541(a)(2) upon the other spouse's individual filing, and community claims may be discharged as to community property under Section 524(a)(3).
This produces a Schedule H disclosure even where the non-filing spouse never signed the instrument. The Bankruptcy Code treats the non-filing spouse as a codebtor for community-debt purposes for schedule-disclosure and notice purposes, because the creditor's claim reaches community property by operation of state law. The 8-year look-back on Schedule H asks for "people who are also liable for any of your debts," and in community-property jurisdictions that question reaches the non-filing spouse for all community obligations.
The community-property complications get more intricate when spouses live separately, when one spouse's earnings are characterized as separate, when premarital debts are at issue, and when a spouse has executed a transmutation agreement converting separate property to community property or vice versa. Each of those questions can affect what the non-filing spouse must be listed for on Schedule H and what the discharge does and does not reach.
In Chapter 13, the filing of the petition creates - in addition to the Section 362 automatic stay - a separate codebtor stay under 11 U.S.C. Section 1301 that prohibits a creditor from acting to collect a consumer debt from any non-debtor individual who is also liable. The codebtor stay is unique to Chapter 13 and exists nowhere else in the Code. It is the principal practical reason a consumer debtor with non-filing codebtors might choose Chapter 13 over Chapter 7 even if Chapter 7 would otherwise be available and discharge-efficient.
Section 1301 has three exceptions. The codebtor stay does not apply (1) to a codebtor who became liable in the ordinary course of the codebtor's business; (2) to a case that has been closed or converted to another chapter; or (3) to the extent a creditor proves at a hearing that the debtor's plan does not propose to pay the underlying claim, that the codebtor (not the debtor) actually received the consideration, or that the creditor would be irreparably harmed by continuation of the stay. The third category is the litigated one; most disputes turn on the debtor's plan-payment proposal for the claim.
The codebtor stay terminates when the case is closed, dismissed, or converted; it does not survive Chapter 13 dismissal. Discharge under Section 1328 does not release the codebtor, only the debtor. A codebtor who paid the obligation during the case may file a claim under Section 501(b) to be treated as the holder of the underlying claim.
A divorce decree often allocates marital debts between the spouses, requiring one spouse to pay (or "hold harmless and indemnify" the other) specific obligations. The decree binds the two spouses but does not bind the original creditor. The creditor may still collect from either spouse on a joint signature; the non-paying spouse's recourse is against the other spouse under the decree, not against the creditor.
For Schedule H purposes, an ex-spouse who is a co-signer on the debtor's listed debts remains a codebtor to be listed even if a divorce decree allocates payment responsibility to the debtor. The discharge does not eliminate the ex-spouse's exposure to the creditor; it only eliminates the debtor's exposure. The ex-spouse's indemnity rights against the debtor under the decree may themselves be non-dischargeable as a domestic-support obligation under Section 523(a)(5) or as a non-support divorce-decree obligation in Chapter 7 under Section 523(a)(15). This last point is the most-overlooked Schedule H consequence: the discharge may strip the debtor's direct creditor liability while leaving the ex-spouse's indemnity claim against the debtor intact and non-dischargeable.
The omissions that surface on a 341 examination include:
Schedule H is the schedule the debtor's spouse, ex-spouse, parents, and former business partners read first. The notice that follows from a Schedule H listing - that the debtor has filed bankruptcy on a debt the codebtor also owes - is often the first they hear of the case and the first they realize the creditor will be asking them to pay.
This page provides general information about Official Form 106H under the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. It does not constitute legal advice. The treatment of community property, codebtor liability, and divorce-decree allocations should be evaluated by qualified counsel under the applicable state law.
Last modified: 2026-05-22