The Court is pleased to announce a noticing enhancement that will reduce the volume of returned mail received by debtors and debtors' attorneys. Effective July 12, 2010, the Bankruptcy Noticing Center ("BNC") will generally not mail a notice to an address that is invalid or is otherwise deemed undeliverable by the United States Postal Service. Reasons for undeliverable mail may include that the recipient: moved to a foreign address; moved and left no forwarding address or the forwarding address has expired; or has a post office box closed or that the address for the recipient is otherwise incomplete. The BNC will mail a notification to the debtor or debtor’s attorney stating that the notice was bypassed. The bypass notification will: (1) include a copy of the notice that the BNC did not mail to the undeliverable address; (2) identify the creditor and the undeliverable address; (3) instruct the debtor to immediately mail the undelivered notice to the creditor; (4) inform the debtor that the BNC will not mail future notices to the undeliverable address; and (5) include space on the notification for the debtor to insert a corrected address for the creditor. The BNC will continue to identify undeliverable addresses for creditors on each BNC Certificate of Notice under the category "Bypassed." The BNC will also include the reason why a creditor's address was bypassed and state that the debtor or debtor's attorney was notified that the address was undeliverable.
The BNC will continue to mail notices to undeliverable addresses under the following conditions: (1) the address is for a debtor; or (2) the address is for a creditor who, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 342(f), has filed a preferred address with the BNC for all cases or who, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 342(e), has filed a preferred address with the court for a particular case. The BNC will attempt to contact the preferred address recipient regarding the need for address correction.
An upcoming CM/ECF release will provide for receipt of bypass notifications by email. Please refer to Operating Order 08-05 for further instructions on correcting invalid addresses and re-noticing undeliverable items.