Chapter 13 bankruptcy is especially well tailored to middle and upper middle class Americans who are having financial difficulty. In a Chapter 13 creditors get paid back at least some of what they are owed, and debtors participate in an affordable payment arrangement administered by a Chapter 13 Trustee. Chapter 13 is usually a win-win [...]
January 2010
Student loans, unlike most other unsecured debts, are not discharged after the completion of payments under a chapter 13 plan (unless you qualify for a rare finding of undue hardship). This unhappy fact makes careful drafting of the student loan debtor’s chapter 13 repayment plan especially important. Don’t let your hard-earned dollars be paid out to the “wrong” [...]
In many Chapter 13 cases, the debtors are supposed to continue (or resume) making your regular monthly mortgage payments directly to your lender. (In some districts, you make those payments through the Chapter 13 trustee, so I’m not talking to you folks.) But if you are required to make the payments yourself, you need to [...]
One of the little known benefits of bankruptcy is that it give you more time to do the things you need to do. If you are preoccupied paying debts, you may not have had the time to do other things which you are legally required to do. Or you may not have had the time [...]
In Part 1 we discussed how mortgage companies often engage in “double dipping” when you are in a Chapter 13. Part 2 deals with how mortgage companies commonly fail to send you a monthly statement while you are in a chapter 13 bankruptcy. In many parts of the country, when you file a Chapter 13, you continue to make [...]
A recent Kansas bankruptcy case, Wieland v. Viles, Adv. No. 09-7006 (Bky.D.Kan. Jan. 19, 2010), involved a married couple who filed a chapter 7 case together. The chapter 7 trustee asked the bankruptcy court to deny them a discharge under section 727 of the bankruptcy code, due to fraudulently transferring property before filing the case, [...]
