The Painted Porch Project

The procedural guide. What a Proof of Claim is, when you can file one, how to fill out Form 410 line by line, what to attach, where to send it, and the three claim types every Painted Tree vendor should understand. Companion to the Bankruptcy Brief.

Last updated: May 1, 2026

This is the procedural companion to The Painted Tree Bankruptcy — What Vendors Actually Need to Know. That brief tells you the why. This guide tells you the how — the exact steps to fill out, attach, and submit a Proof of Claim that the trustee will actually look at.

If you have not read the brief yet, read it first. Sections 3 and 4 of the brief describe what to do immediately around the closure and filing. This guide covers the procedural mechanics of getting your claim into the docket.

For a chronological event-by-event record of the case as new docket entries land, see The Painted Tree Timeline.

Status note for Painted Tree vendors — case docketed April 28, 2026. The petition has been filed. Lead case: In re Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC, Case No. 26-32919, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. Sixty-four affiliated per-store LLCs filed alongside the parent. You can file a Proof of Claim now. The default bar date under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002(c) is on or about July 7, 2026 (70 days from the April 28 order for relief), but the court will mail you the binding deadline along with the §341 meeting notice within the first few weeks. Read the actual notice when it arrives — its date controls.

1. What a Proof of Claim is

A Proof of Claim (often abbreviated POC) is the formal written statement a creditor submits to a federal bankruptcy court to assert their right to receive a distribution from the debtor's bankruptcy estate.

It is filed on Official Form 410, a five-page federal form maintained by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The form is free. You do not need a lawyer to file it. You file it directly with the court (or with the court-appointed claims agent, if one is named).

A Proof of Claim is the only document a court will look at when deciding whether you get paid. An unfiled claim is an unpaid claim. No matter how good your records are, no matter how many emails you have from Painted Tree corporate, no matter how clearly you are owed the money — if you do not file the form by the deadline, you do not exist in the case.

The deadline is called the bar date. We get to it in Section 4.

There are three sub-types of claim a Painted Tree vendor should know about. They are not mutually exclusive. A typical vendor files one POC that includes more than one type:

General unsecured claim — for unpaid sales, pre-paid rent, deposits, the value of unrecovered inventory if the trustee successfully argues your goods are estate property. This is the rung most vendor money lands on.
Section 503(b)(9) administrative-expense claim — for the value of goods you delivered to Painted Tree in the 20 days before the petition is filed, in the ordinary course of business. This rung gets paid before general unsecured claims, often at meaningfully higher recovery rates. Painted Tree vendors who dropped off inventory in late March or April 2026 likely have a 503(b)(9) component.
Priority unsecured claim — limited categories. Most vendor claims do not qualify for priority status.

A separate but related remedy — a reclamation demand — is not filed on Form 410. It is filed by separate written demand directly to the debtor and trustee, within a tight statutory window, and usually requires a lawyer. Section 7 explains.

2. The case is now docketed — here is what to monitor

The petition was filed April 28, 2026 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division (515 Rusk Avenue, Houston, TX 77002). Lead case: In re Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC, Case No. 26-32919.

Three sources you should monitor going forward:

PACER (pacer.uscourts.gov). This is the federal docket. Register a free PACER account, search Case No. 26-32919, and bookmark the docket. New filings appear here first: trustee appointment, §341 meeting notice, bar date order, motions and objections. Document downloads are $0.10/page after the first $30/quarter, but the docket list is free.
The court's website (txs.uscourts.gov / txsb.uscourts.gov). The S.D. Tex. court page links to its ePOC (Electronic Proof of Claim) filing tool, which is how most pro-se creditors file. Section 7 below covers ePOC mechanics.
The mail. The debtor's schedules list every known creditor; a notice goes out by U.S. mail to the address on file. The notice will tell you the §341 meeting date and the bar date — and those dates control over any general defaults you read here. Painted Tree had your booth-agreement address on file. If you have moved since signing your vendor agreement, send a written address-change notice to the bankruptcy court clerk at the Houston address above, citing the case number, so future notices reach you.

A claims agent has not been confirmed appointed in this case as of this writing. If one is appointed (typical for retail Ch7 of this size), the trustee or court will publish the claims-agent URL — you'd file through their portal instead of ePOC. Monitor the docket for "Application to Employ" or "Order Authorizing Retention" of a claims/noticing agent.

What's on the schedules already (Document 6, filed April 30, 2026)

The debtors have filed their Schedules of Assets and Liabilities. Key items vendors should know:

You appear as a "Shop Owner" on Schedule F-1, in a single combined line, classified as Contingent / Unliquidated / Disputed, with no individual amount listed. This is why filing a Proof of Claim is mandatory. The schedules do not record what you are owed; only your filed POC will.
The debtors' POS / accounts-receivable software access was cut off about 10 days before the filing (≈ April 18, 2026). Your SimpleConsign exports for April 18–28 may be incomplete; reconstruct from your own records.
Total scheduled liabilities: $16,568,660.68 (priority unsecured $566,199.23; non-priority unsecured $11,800,189.68; secured ~$4.2M).
No real property owned by the debtors. The trustee's recovery pool is cash, fixtures, leasehold-tenant improvements, intellectual property (the "Painted Tree" brand and customer database), and any clawback proceeds.
Stripe is listed as a creditor (Schedule line 3.185, basis: "Shop Owner chargebacks"). Vendors who issued chargebacks to Painted Tree before the petition should treat those amounts as already accounted for outside the POC process.

Build the claim package now

Use the spreadsheet recommended in the brief — PaintedTree_Claim_2026-04.xlsx — and fill it in completely. Columns: category, description, dollar amount, evidence filename, date.

Then assemble a single PDF claim package that contains, in this order:

The completed Form 410, with Case No. 26-32919 and In re Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC filled in. If your booth was at a specific store location (e.g., Painted Tree Lincoln LLC, Painted Tree Memphis LLC), you may also list the affiliate-debtor name on the form — but the lead case number is what controls.
A one-page claim summary statement that explains, in plain language, what each line of the spreadsheet is and what evidence supports it.
Exhibit A: Your signed Painted Tree vendor agreement.
Exhibit B: Your inventory manifest (the spreadsheet itself, exported as PDF).
Exhibit C: Your most recent statement of account / sales report from SimpleConsign, or whatever Painted Tree was using as your point-of-sale.
Exhibit D: Bank statements showing pre-paid rent or deposits going to Painted Tree.
Exhibit E: The April 14, 2026 vendor email announcing closure.
Exhibit F: Any photos of your booth and inventory taken during the April 14–24 retrieval window.
Exhibit G: Any correspondence with Painted Tree corporate, store managers, or your landlord about retrieval, payments, or amounts owed.

Save this package as PaintedTree_POC_Package_[YourShopName].pdf. Save it in three places: a local drive, a cloud drive, and a printed paper copy in a folder. Redundancy matters.

Fill out Form 410 today

Get the form. Fill in Case No. 26-32919 and Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC as the debtor. Fill in everything else you can. The trustee field will be populated by the court; you do not need to know the trustee's name to file a claim. Section 5 walks through the form line by line.

3. The three claim types — which ones apply to you

General unsecured claim — the default

This covers most of what Painted Tree owes you:

Sales already rung up at the register but not yet paid out. The April commission run that never came.
Pre-paid rent for April or May. Booth rent paid in advance for weeks the store will never open again.
Refundable deposits. If you put a deposit down to start a booth, that deposit is owed back.
Display fixtures and equipment Painted Tree was holding. If they had your shelving, signage, or display pieces and won't return them, the value is a claim.
Inventory the trustee successfully argues was estate property. If the trustee or a secured creditor wins the consignment-classification argument and your unsold goods become estate property, the value of those goods becomes a general unsecured claim. (See brief Section 3 for the "generally known" argument that may keep your goods out of the estate.)

Total all of these in your spreadsheet. The total is the dollar amount you put on the general unsecured line of Form 410.

Section 503(b)(9) administrative claim — the priority rung

This is the rung most vendors miss and the one that often pays out at a meaningfully higher rate than general unsecured.

The rule: 11 U.S.C. § 503(b)(9) gives administrative-expense priority — Chapter 7 distribution rung 2, paid before all general unsecured claims — to "the value of any goods received by the debtor within 20 days before the date of commencement of a case under this title, in which the goods have been sold to the debtor in the ordinary course of such debtor's business."

In plain English: if Painted Tree received goods from you in the 20 days before the bankruptcy petition is filed, the value of those specific goods sits on a higher rung than your other claims.

For Painted Tree vendors, the window is now precisely set: April 8, 2026 – April 28, 2026 (inclusive). Any inventory you delivered to any Painted Tree store on or after April 8, 2026 qualifies, valued at cost, not retail.

What "received" means. It means the debtor (Painted Tree) took possession of the goods. The store's drop-off log, your dated booth-stocking record, or a SimpleConsign delivery entry is the evidence. It does not have to be sold for the claim to qualify; it has to be received.

What "in the ordinary course of business" means. Booth restocks were ordinary course. A one-off bulk shipment that did not match your normal pattern may be challenged.

How you assert the claim: On Form 410, Item 12, you check the box for "Up to $3,025 of deposits ... or §503(b)(9)" and you specify the amount that is asserted under §503(b)(9). The form is structured so a single POC can include both an administrative-expense piece and a general unsecured piece — you do not file two separate forms.

The evidence to gather:

Itemized list of every delivery you made to a Painted Tree store on or after April 8, 2026 through the closure on April 13, 2026. Date, store location, SKU, quantity, unit cost, total.
For each item: cost basis, not retail. Section 503(b)(9) values goods at cost, not at the price you intended to sell them for.
Any receipt or signed delivery sheet, photo of the dropoff, or SimpleConsign log entry. Note: Painted Tree's POS software was cut off ~10 days before the filing (≈ April 18). Your SimpleConsign records for April 8–18 should be intact; for April 18–28 you may need to reconstruct from your own logs, photos, and store-manager emails.

If you have $4,000 of inventory in that window and the recovery rate on §503(b)(9) claims in this case ends up at 40%, you collect $1,600 — versus the same $4,000 sitting in a general-unsecured pool that recovers $0 in a no-asset case. The 20-day window is the single most valuable provision for vendors. Do not skip it.

Reclamation demand — different process, faster clock

A reclamation demand is not a Proof of Claim. It is a separate state-law and federal-bankruptcy remedy under U.C.C. § 2-702 and 11 U.S.C. § 546(c). It says: "You received my goods while you were insolvent. I demand them back."

The clock is short:

The demand must be in writing.
It must reach the debtor within 45 days after receipt of the goods (with an outside backstop of 20 days after the petition date, if 45 days has not yet run on the petition date).
The goods must still be identifiable in the debtor's possession.

For a Painted Tree vendor, reclamation almost only matters for goods delivered immediately before closure that were not retrieved in the April 14–24 window and are still sitting in a store somewhere. If that describes you and the dollar value is meaningful (over $5,000), this is the call-an-attorney scenario, not the file-yourself-on-Form-410 scenario.

The brief's Inventory Recovery playbook covers the practical contact ladder for retrieving goods. A formal reclamation demand is the legal escalation when the contact ladder does not work and the deadline is closing in.

4. The bar date — the deadline that ends everything

The bar date is the court-set deadline for filing a Proof of Claim. Miss it and your claim is permanently barred. There are no second chances except in narrow circumstances.

Voluntary Chapter 7 default: Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002 sets the bar date at 70 days after the order for relief. In a voluntary Chapter 7, the order for relief is the petition date. For this case — Painted Tree's petition was filed April 28, 2026 — the default bar date is on or about July 7, 2026. This date will be confirmed (or modified) by the court's notice to creditors.

Governmental units get 180 days, not 70. This does not apply to vendors.

No-asset notice override: If the trustee determines there are no non-exempt assets to distribute, the court issues a Rule 2002(e) notice telling creditors not to file Proofs of Claim until further notice. In that situation, do not file. Filing a POC into a no-asset case clutters the docket and does nothing. If assets later turn up — which can happen when a trustee wins clawback litigation — the court issues a fresh bar-date notice with at least 90 days for creditors to file.

The single rule that matters: Read the actual bar-date notice when it arrives. The court tells you the deadline in writing. The deadline in the notice trumps any general rule discussed here.

5. Filling out Form 410 — line by line

Form 410 is five pages. The first three pages are the form itself. The last two are instructions. Print all five.

The form is divided into Parts. Here is how to fill out each Part for a typical Painted Tree vendor claim.

Part 1 — Identify the Claim

1. Who is the current creditor?

Your legal business name. If you operate as an LLC, the LLC name. If you operate as a sole proprietor without an LLC, your personal legal name (you can add "DBA [shop name]"). Use the same name that is on your Painted Tree vendor agreement and your tax records.

2. Has this claim been acquired from someone else?

For Painted Tree vendors: No.

3. Where should notices and payments be sent?

Your current mailing address, phone, and email. This is the address the trustee mails the check to. Get it right. If you moved, do not put your old address.

4. Does this amount differ from the amount on the creditors' schedule?

Yes — always, for Painted Tree vendors. The debtors' Schedules of Assets and Liabilities (Document 6, filed April 30, 2026) list all vendors collectively as "Shop Owners" on Schedule F-1, classified as Contingent / Unliquidated / Disputed, with no individual amount listed. Your filed Proof of Claim is the only document in the case that asserts a specific dollar number for your claim. Check Yes and explain in the attached statement that the debtor scheduled your claim collectively as "Shop Owners" with no amount, and that the amount on your Form 410 reflects your books and records.

5. Do you know if anyone else has filed a Proof of Claim for this claim?

For Painted Tree vendors: No.

Part 2 — Give Information About the Claim as of the Date the Case Was Filed

6. Do you have any number you use to identify the debtor?

This is your vendor account number with Painted Tree, if you had one. Booth number is fine if that was your identifier.

7. How much is the claim?

The total dollar amount you are owed, including the §503(b)(9) portion if any. This is the number from your spreadsheet. Do not include interest unless your contract entitled you to it; if it did, list interest separately and note "as of [petition date]."

8. What is the basis of the claim?

For Painted Tree vendors, this is one of:

"Goods sold and delivered to the debtor on consignment / for sale on commission"
"Pre-paid booth rent for [month]"
"Refund of security deposit"
Some combination of the above.

Be specific. "Money owed" is not specific enough. "April 1 booth rent paid in advance for booth #117 at the Lincoln, NE store; Painted Tree closed all locations April 13, 2026 before any of the rented period was used; refund owed = $625" is specific enough.

9. Is all or part of the claim secured?

For typical Painted Tree vendor claims: No.

If you have a written security interest (rare), you would check yes and complete the secured-portion details. Talk to a lawyer if you think this applies.

10. Is this claim based on a lease?

For booth rent: No — your booth agreement is a license, not a lease, even if it uses the word "lease." (If your specific written agreement is structured as a true lease, talk to a lawyer.)

11. Is this claim subject to a right of setoff?

For Painted Tree vendors: No in almost every case.

12. Is all or part of the claim entitled to priority under 11 U.S.C. § 507(a)?

This is the §503(b)(9) box. If you have inventory delivered in the 20 days before the petition, you check the §503(b)(9) sub-box and write the dollar amount that is asserted as administrative priority.

For example, if your total claim is $7,500 and $2,400 of that is the cost of inventory delivered in the 20-day window, you write $2,400 next to the §503(b)(9) line. The remaining $5,100 is general unsecured.

13. Is all or part of the claim entitled to administrative priority pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 503(b)(9)?

This is the redundancy check on Item 12. If you put a §503(b)(9) amount above, repeat it here.

Part 3 — Sign Below

The form must be signed under penalty of perjury. The signer must be either the creditor (you), the creditor's authorized agent, or the creditor's attorney. Be honest. A claim filed under penalty of perjury that contains material misstatements is a crime — 18 U.S.C. § 152. The penalty is up to five years in prison. It is rare, but it happens; do not pad your numbers, do not include amounts you cannot evidence, and do not sign for a business partner without their knowledge.

Date and sign. Print your name and title. Provide phone and email.

6. The exhibits — what to attach

Every line of your claim needs an exhibit that proves it. The trustee's reviewer is reading hundreds of vendor claims. Yours wins the moment they can flip to the exhibit and see the math.

Required:

The completed and signed Form 410.
A one-to-two-page claim summary statement in your own words. Walk through each line of the claim. Cite which exhibit proves it. Total to the same number on the form.
Your signed Painted Tree vendor agreement.
Your most recent statement of account / commission report / booth ledger.
Bank statements showing any payments to Painted Tree (booth rent, deposits) for which you are seeking refund.

Strongly recommended:

Itemized inventory manifest as a spreadsheet. SKU, description, qty delivered, qty sold, qty remaining, unit cost, total cost. This is the same manifest from the inventory-recovery playbook.
For §503(b)(9) claims: a separate sub-manifest of the goods delivered in the 20-day window with delivery dates and SimpleConsign log entries.
Photos of unsold inventory, dated.
The April 14, 2026 vendor email (PDF).

Optional but useful:

Correspondence with store managers or corporate.
Police reports if you reported theft of inventory.
Insurance correspondence.

Do not attach:

Original documents — always copies. The court does not return originals.
Personal financial information not relevant to the claim (your tax returns, your home address if not your business address, etc.).
Documents protected by attorney-client privilege.

7. How to file — three options

Most retailer Chapter 7 cases use a claims agent for claim intake. The case docket and the bar-date notice will tell you whether one was appointed and how to file.

Option A — Electronic filing through the claims agent

If a claims agent is appointed (Stretto, Epiq, KCC, BMC, Omni), the claims agent sets up a public case page with an upload portal. You log in (no account needed; just an email and the case identifier from the bar-date notice), fill out a webform that mirrors Form 410, and upload your exhibit PDF.

This is the fastest method. Most cases process electronic filings within 24 hours and assign a claim number that you can use to track the claim later.

Option B — Electronic filing through the court (ePOC)

If no claims agent is appointed in this case, the S.D. Tex. ePOC tool is the right path. Start at the court's main page (txs.uscourts.gov or txsb.uscourts.gov) and follow the "File a Claim" / "ePOC" link. Enter Case No. 26-32919, identify yourself as the creditor, upload a PDF of your completed Form 410 plus exhibits, and submit. No PACER login required for ePOC. You receive a claim number by email within minutes to a day.

Option C — By mail

If you cannot or prefer not to file electronically, mail your completed Form 410 plus exhibits to:

Clerk, U.S. Bankruptcy Court

Southern District of Texas, Houston Division

515 Rusk Avenue

Houston, TX 77002

Re: In re Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC, Case No. 26-32919

Send certified mail with return receipt requested. Keep the receipt. Mail processing can take 7–14 days. Plan for that buffer if the bar date is approaching. (If a claims agent is later appointed, the bar-date notice will give you a different mailing address — that address controls; use it instead.)

Do not attempt to file by email. Most claims agents and most courts do not accept email filings for Proofs of Claim.

Do not pay anyone to file the form for you. There is no filing fee. Any third party charging you to "file your claim" is selling you nothing.

8. After you file — what happens

Within a week of filing, you will receive an acknowledgment from either the claims agent or the court clerk that includes a claim number. Save this. The claim number is how the trustee references your claim from now on.

The trustee will eventually review every filed claim. If the trustee disagrees with your amount or your priority classification, the trustee can file an objection. You will be served a copy. You then have a period — usually 30 days — to respond.

This is the moment to consider hiring an attorney. A claim objection is the trustee saying "I think you are owed less than you say." Most pro-se vendors lose objections they could have won, because they do not know how to write a response. If your claim is over $10,000, an attorney's $500–$1,500 response cost is usually a strong investment.

If no objection is filed, the claim is allowed in the amount you stated. Allowed claims sit on the docket waiting for distribution.

Distributions in Chapter 7 retail cases typically happen 18–36 months after filing. The trustee mails a check (or in larger cases, wires it) to the address on the form. You report it as ordinary income in the year you receive it. Talk to a tax preparer about whether part of it is recovery of basis (not income) versus interest (income).

9. Traps to avoid

Patterns we are already seeing in the Painted Tree vendor community:

"I'll wait for the case to be filed and then start gathering paperwork." No. The bar date is 70 days from the petition. By the time you find out the case is filed, half your filing window is gone, your SimpleConsign access may be revoked, and your evidence may be much harder to assemble. Build the claim package now.
"A debt collector will file my claim for me for 30%." No. You file directly. There is no fee. Anyone selling you "claims filing services" is taking 30% of nothing you would not otherwise have collected yourself.
"I'll file a claim for everything that ever went wrong with Painted Tree." No. You file a claim for amounts you can evidence and that fall into a recognized claim category. Inflated claims draw objections. Objections cost you money to respond to. File the real number.
"I can use the same claim package my friend at another store used." No. Each vendor's claim is specific to that vendor's facts — your booth number, your inventory, your delivery dates, your contract. Copy the structure, not the contents.
"The trustee will figure out what I'm owed from Painted Tree's records." No. The trustee will look at what Painted Tree's schedules say you are owed, which is often $0 or a fraction of the real number. Your filed claim is the only document that asserts the real number.
"If I sue, I don't need to file a claim." No. Once the petition is filed, the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 freezes all lawsuits against the debtor. The Proof of Claim becomes the only mechanism, full stop.
"I should wait until I see the trustee's distribution plan before filing." No. The bar date passes long before any distribution plan is filed. Miss the bar date, you are not in the distribution.

10. When to call a bankruptcy attorney

Most Painted Tree vendors can file a Proof of Claim themselves. The form is not complex. The exhibits are not hard to assemble. The work is mostly bookkeeping.

You should consider calling a bankruptcy attorney licensed in your state if any of the following apply:

Your total claim exceeds $10,000–$15,000. The claim is large enough to be worth an attorney's time and the trustee is more likely to scrutinize it.
You believe a meaningful portion of your unsold inventory is still your property under the UCC consignment rules and you want to fight to keep it out of the estate. (See brief Section 3 — the "generally known" argument.)
You are pursuing a reclamation demand for goods delivered shortly before closure. The 45-day clock is unforgiving.
Painted Tree's principals personally guaranteed any obligation to you. Personal guarantees survive the corporate bankruptcy and are pursued separately.
You believe there are facts that support piercing the corporate veil — fraud, commingling of personal and corporate funds, transfers to insiders. This is a high bar but is occasionally met in retail collapses.
A trustee files an objection to your claim and you do not know how to respond.
A landlord or third party claims a lien on your inventory and you do not have access to it.
You are owed §503(b)(9) money over $5,000 and you want to maximize the priority recovery.

The American Bar Association's Lawyer Referral Service and your state bar both maintain free referral lines. The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) publishes a free directory at nacba.org. Most bankruptcy attorneys offer a free 30-minute initial consultation.

A short disclaimer

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Federal bankruptcy law interacts with state contract law and state UCC variations in ways that only an attorney licensed in your state can fully evaluate for your specific facts. The procedures described above reflect the current Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure and Official Form 410 as of April 29, 2026; courts occasionally amend forms and rules.

We are not lawyers. The Painted Porch is operated by DotWin LLC, a small-business accelerator. We wrote this guide because the vendors we work with kept asking the same questions and we are tired of seeing them get those questions answered by debt-collection scammers and Facebook-group rumors.

If your claim is over $10,000, talk to a bankruptcy attorney. The cost of the conversation is almost always less than the cost of getting it wrong.

Sources

11 U.S.C. § 503(b)(9) — administrative-expense priority for goods received in the 20-day pre-petition window.
11 U.S.C. § 507(a) — priority of expenses and claims.
11 U.S.C. § 546(c) — reclamation in bankruptcy; cross-references U.C.C. § 2-702.
11 U.S.C. § 362 — automatic stay.
11 U.S.C. § 726 — distribution priority in Chapter 7.
18 U.S.C. § 152 — perjury and false claims in bankruptcy.
Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002 — time for filing Proofs of Claim.
Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2002 — notices to creditors.
Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3001 — Proof of Claim form requirements.
Official Form 410 — Proof of Claim. Available at uscourts.gov/forms/bankruptcy-forms.
U.S. Trustee Program — chapter 7 trustee handbook and case-administration data.
U.C.C. § 2-702 — seller's right of reclamation under state law.
Local news reporting on Painted Tree Boutiques closures, April 14–23, 2026.
The Painted Tree Boutiques vendor email of April 14, 2026 (announcement; archived in the Project's Library).

Revision history

We are updating this guide as the case progresses. The current article body always reflects what we know now; this section preserves how the picture sharpened. For a chronological event-by-event record of the entire case, see the Painted Tree Timeline.

2026-05-01 — Case docketed; recalibrated guide for post-filing posture. The Chapter 7 petition was filed April 28, 2026 — In re Painted Tree Marketplace, LLC, Case No. 26-32919, S.D. Tex., Houston Division. Replaced the "you cannot file yet" status box with "you can file now"; updated Section 2 from pre-filing monitoring to post-filing monitoring (PACER, court ePOC, mail; claims agent unconfirmed); fixed the §503(b)(9) window to April 8 – April 28, 2026 (precise); set the default bar date to on or about July 7, 2026 (FRBP 3002(c)); rewrote Form 410 Item 4 guidance to "Yes — always" because the debtors' Schedule F-1 lists vendors collectively as "Shop Owners" with no individual amounts; replaced placeholder filing addresses with the actual S.D. Tex. court address (515 Rusk Avenue, Houston, TX 77002); added the ~10-day pre-petition POS-software shutoff context (≈ April 18) to the §503(b)(9) evidence section.
2026-04-29 — Initial publication. The petition had been announced but no public docket had surfaced. We explicitly hedged: "you cannot file a Proof of Claim yet — there is no case number to file into; prepare your package now and submit on day one." That advice was correct as written but the package was filable within 24 hours: as we later learned, the petition had actually been filed April 28.

If you forward this guide to another vendor, the most useful thing you can tell them is: assemble the claim package this week and file as soon as the §341 / bar-date notice arrives in the mail. The vendor with a finished package early is the vendor who collects.

How to File a Proof of Claim — Step by Step