Debt collectors can make your life miserable. Repeated, angry phone calls at home. Inappropriate calls at work. Nasty letters. It’s enough to make you want to disconnect your phone and tell the mailman you’ve gone on an extended trip. You don’t have to. There are federal and state laws that protect you from debt collection [...]
May 2007
As of October 17, 2005, each debtor filing a new voluntary bankruptcy case must comply with Section 109 describing who may be a debtor. Commonly known as the “credit counseling” requirement, this section requires that a debtor must have received a briefing, from an approved agency, that outlined the opportunities for credit counseling and assisted [...]
The means test imposed on those filing bankruptcy uses certain of the IRS collection standards to create allowances for over median income debtors in certain categories. The cost of buying a car and operating a car are two of those categories. Before means testing, my clients would frequently tell me that they spent $100 or [...]
Email is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The number one complaint from clients almost universally is that they never have enough time with their attorney. Email allows you to contact your attorney 24/7 from anywhere in the world. Email also allows you to gather your thoughts in a more complete fashion so you are [...]
Most Chapter 7 bankruptcies are concluded in a relatively short period of time. Once the petition and all the schedules are filed, the court will appoint a bankruptcy trustee to administer the estate, conduct a meeting of creditors, question the debtor, gather assets, and pay creditors out of any nonexempt property. Then the bankruptcy will [...]
When a person files bankruptcy, all their property goes into the bankruptcy case and becomes part of the “bankruptcy estate.” This includes bank accounts. Often, checks have not cleared yet when the case is actually filed. But they clear immediately afterwards. The Chapter 7 trustee — who is charged with collecting the estate property and [...]
