The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on S.2636 this week. This bill will help distressed homeowners save their homes from foreclosure by allowing a bankruptcy judge to modify their mortgage loans in chapter 13 bankruptcy. Kurt O’Keefe wrote about this beneficial legislation recently and reported that the mortgage lenders are fighting this relief for [...]
February 2008
The Oregon legislature narrowly missed the opportunity to help homeowners deal with aggressive loan terms when the session closed without passage of representative Jeff Merkley’s mortgage industry reform bill. Jeff Merkley, speaker of the Oregon house of representatives and a candidate for US Senate from Oregon, pushed hard for his bill limiting the impact of [...]
Student loans are hard to get rid of; even in bankruptcy. Congress only allows a bankruptcy court to discharge student loan debt when not doing so causes undue hardship for the debtor or the dependents of the debtor. The discharge rule for student loans is short and is set out in 11 USC §523(a)(8). Undue [...]
The impact on your credit score is the same for a short sale, a deed in lieu, or a foreclosure, a Fair Isaacs representative told bankruptcy lawyers at this weekend’s seminar. It is, he said, the 120 day late payments, which he presumed underlay each of these alternatives, that damages the FICO score. How the [...]
Senate Bill 2636 (introduced by Harry Reid, D, NV), which contains a provision that would allow a bankruptcy judge to modify a distressed home mortgage loan in chapter 13 bankruptcy, will be up for a vote by the full Senate this week. Mortgage lenders are fighting this bill, which would help 600,000 Americans save their [...]
One of the changes which became effective January 1, 2008, for the bankruptcy “means test” concerns expenses for health care. Lines 19B and 31 of Form B22 (chapter 7), and lines 24B and 36 of Form B22C (chapter 13), now constitute a two-part listing for health care expenses, including a minimum allowance you are entitled to [...]
