Earlier this month, I posted a rebuttal to a Forbes online article written by a tax lawyer named Stephen Dunn. Mr. Dunn opines that usually Chapter 7 is not the best option for debtors facing severe financial hardship. Noted consumer advocate Gerri Detweiler saw my Bankruptcy Law Network post and invited me to guest post [...]
June 2011
The Kansas Supreme Court recently ruled in Hall v. Ford Motor Credit Co. LLC, that a debtor’s failure to reaffirm a debt secured by his pick-up truck during his Chapter 7 bankruptcy constituted a default of his loan with Ford Motor Credit. The court found that the debtor’s Chapter 7 discharge significantly impaired the secured [...]
Bankruptcy has some of the more powerful protections for consumers around — the automatic stay and the discharge. There’s an unfortunate secret about the law that no one wants to brag about — with the automatic stay, you can often violate it until someone tells you to stop. Debt collectors know all about the stay [...]
If you are an “above-median income” debtor, you may wonder if you can still file Chapter 7. The answer to this question is “yes,” but your case will be more complicated. Although the phrase “means test” suggests a single calculation, in fact, means testing involves several calculations – it would be more accurate to describe [...]
A New York bankruptcy court ruled that a same sex married couple can file a joint bankruptcy case, just the same as a heterosexual married couple, regardless of the existence of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. This case, In re Somers and Caggiano, No. 10-38296 (Bky.S.D.N.Y. May 4, 2011), and the rulings in In re [...]
An illegal immigrant can file for bankruptcy in the United States. There is no reference to a citizenship requirement in the Bankruptcy Law. US Code §109 provides the requirements to be a “debtor.” The most common way to be eligible to be a debtor is to have a “domicile” in your state. A domicile “requires [...]
