“Don’t be afraid of bankruptcy.” 
So says John Rosevear,  a contributor to The Motley Fool, a very popular and highly regarded investment advice website. 
John rightly recognizes that consumers who choose to file for personal bankruptcy are not typically deadbeats.  Rather, they are people who have suffered through difficult divorces, have incurred medical bills, or who have [...]

Can you be held liable for a relative’s debt? I received the following question from a visitor to my Atlanta Bankruptcy blog that raised this question:
I have a quick question. My uncle has ran up about $10,000 in credit card bills and never intended to pay them. The creditors are starting to call relatives [...]

Exemptions are sets of laws that vary state to state, that exempt, protect or withhold a certain amount of property from creditors if a resident is sued. These exemptions are applied in bankruptcy cases. Bankruptcy cases may use federal exemptions or the state that the case is filed in may have “opted out” [...]

North Florida Bankruptcy Law Network member Chip Parker was featured in an editorial in the newspaper regarding a potential solution to this mortgage crisis which would not involve a bailout by the government but would spread out the solution among investors and others. He discussed a proposal to amend bankruptcy laws to [...]

As explained in my post on “short sales,” these can be a good method for getting a home sold.  But do they make sense?  Certainly for the realtor involved, who won’t get a commission if the house isn’t sold, they make a lot of sense.
For the mortgage company in first position they make sense because [...]

     Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that President Bush is proposing action to address the sub-prime crisis.
The good news is the administration is not planning to bail out the big boys and girls.
Capitalism and the free market are hurt, not helped, when the risk takers are saved from their mistakes.  Our tax money should not [...]

The Federal Trade Commission received 69,204 complaints in 2006 about third-party debt collectors, more than against any other specific industry and nearly triple what it handled in 2000. This according to a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Many consumer find themselves the victim of debt collector harassment. A vast majority – especially those who [...]

Many realtors talk about “short sales” to aid a homeowner who can’t get enough money out of the sale of their home in today’s market to pay the liens.  A “short sale” is an arrangement made with a mortgage company to take less than what is actually owed.
Thus, if a home has, for example, a [...]

The answer to this question from most individuals is no. Chapter 11 is a complicated and expensive reorganization plan designed for corporations in financial trouble, or for individuals with over $336,900 in unsecured debt or more than $1,010,650 in secured debt. These amounts are good from April 2007, and they will be adjusted [...]

As a consumer bankruptcy attorney, I often meet with potential bankruptcy clients who have outstanding medical bills from a personal injury case.  These people are on the brink of bankruptcy, their credit reports are getting hammered from all the late bills, and they may not be able to work due to their injuries.  So, they [...]