The bankruptcy means test does not apply to individual debtors with primarily non-consumer debt such as business debts.  Sounds simple enough, but there is lots of room for argument over the application of this rule.
What is  non-consumer debt?  The bankruptcy code defines consumer debt as debt incurred for personal, family, household purposes. 11 U.S.C. 101(8).  [...]

The penalty for intentionally failing to be complete with the information on your bankruptcy petition and schedules can be a Federal criminal offense punishable by a sentence of up to 5 years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000.00.  Under cetain circumstances, the attorney filing such a petition can also be sanction by [...]

The income guidelines for bankruptcy eligibility are changing for cases filed October 1, 2008.  The census bureau has announced updated median income figures, which are expected to be adopted by the U.S. Trustee for the bankruptcy means test.
If Kansas is typical, the income guidelines increase slightly.  For example, the guideline for one Kansas earner goes [...]

Foreclosures are being stopped because the purported mortgage holder cannot prove it holds rights to the mortgage.  Those cases do not remove the mortgage entirely, but only stop the foreclosure.  More can be done.
Section 506 (d) of the Bankruptcy Code will permanently void a mortgage if the claim is disallowed.  This can be easier than you think.  [...]

A recent Boston.com article focused on the impact of abandoned and foreclosed homes on towns in Massachusetts. A particularly interesting section of the article related to the Town of Randolph’s attempts to get the owner of an abandoned house to do some basic maintenance of the property, such as disposing of trash and trimming grass.
A [...]

Withdrawals from retirement accounts do not count as “income” for the bankruptcy means test, according to the Eighth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel.
At long last, there is again harmony. As I have discussed before, my neighboring courts in the Western District of Missouri had concluded that withdrawals from retirement accounts, like a 401(k) or an [...]

Senator Barrack Obama called for bankruptcy law change in his presidential nomination acceptance speech before the Democrat National Convention Thursday night (08/28/08) in Denver.
“That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now . . . let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president,” Obama [...]

On July 8, 2008, California passed urgency legislation that extends the time period that tenants have to vacate property recently foreclosed.
Under previous laws, tenants were to be provided a 30 day notice prior to eviction proceedings being filed.  Now the law provides that tenants are entitled to 60 days.

Almost a million bankruptcy cases were filed in the United States in the past year ending June 30, 2008, according to statistics released by the government.

Consumer filings were up 28.4 percent and business filings were up 41.6 percent compared to a year ago.

Bankruptcy law allows the modification of a mobile home loan in Chapter 13, the Eighth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel ruled this week. The 2005 amendments to bankruptcy law did not add mobile homes to real estate mortgages which are generally protected from modification.
Chapter 13 generally allows a person to modify the repayment owed to [...]