The U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit recently issued its highly-anticipated decision on the permissibility of balloon payments in Chapter 13. The long-and-short of it is that the panel held that the 2005 bankruptcy amendments eliminated balloon payments as an option for Chapter 13 debtors. The case Hamilton v. Wells Fargo Bank can [...]
March 2009
Smart Money offers Five Reasons to Avoid Debt-Settlement Firms. The article is worth reading in it’s entirety if you are considering various options, and it does a fairly good job of explaining the difference between debt settlement plans and debt management plans. To me, the most striking observation was on the subject of attrition, or [...]
You can’t modify your mortgage once it’s foreclosed. So defend first and then think about mortgage modification.
New Bankruptcy Laws may soon go into effect to relieve San Diego County’s underwater real estate market, wherein mortgages may be modified or “crammed down” by Bankruptcy Judges. In the first week of March, 2009, the House of Representatives passed the long overdue Bankruptcy “Cramdown Bill” (a mortgage modification bill) by a vote of 234 – 191, [...]
In Sarasota, Florida, Judge Donna Pader Berlin slammed the foreclosure door on Washington Mutual Bank in a mortgage foreclosure case. Â As a foreclosure defense attorney, I love reading about cases like this, because Judge Pader Berlin gets it. Â She was able to see the mortgage company’s game, and she put them on the defensive. On [...]
The bankruptcy law students at St. John’s University School of Law in Queens, NY, have launched a new blog to report the rulings of the nation’s bankruptcy judges. The students will write a succinct analysis of the issues and holding in cutting edge bankruptcy cases. Comments are encouraged on the blog, which will be [...]
