The Week magazine reported that annually, 10,000 Indian farmers kill themselves because they can’t pay their debts. What kind of bankruptcy is available in India, I asked myself. Short answer, after 10 minutes of internet search, I don’t know. That suggests to me that a vigorous bankruptcy system is not part of [...]

Popularity: 13% [?]

Debts tinged with dishonesty are part of a small group of claims where the creditor has to take action in the bankruptcy to avoid their discharge. Most debts that are non dischargeable in a bankruptcy case are so just because of the nature of the debt: recent taxes, family support, drunk driving judgments.
A [...]

Popularity: 11% [?]

George Will’s recent column on “economic hypochondria” is both simplistic and elitist. While his point about the extent to which media and politics have magnified the currrent sense of economic doom have substance, his comments on sub prime mortgages and student loans are the product of an Ivy League education and [...]

Popularity: 9% [?]

My office has been flooded this week with clients with failed offers in compromise for IRS tax debt. Like most clients, they have been clinging to the hope that there was a solution other than bankruptcy.
The comparison of OIC vs. bankruptcy is neatly laid out in an article by Larry Heinkel in the Florida [...]

Popularity: 25% [?]

Many of the same miserable exploding ARM loans that bring clients into my office contain Truth in Lending Act violations.  The right to rescind a transaction that violated TILA is an arrow in my quiver for saving a house.
Absent some legal theory that challenges the lender’s right to foreclose, we are left with the argument [...]

Popularity: 18% [?]

My clarion call to my bankruptcy clients is, “get me all the information“.  More than ever before, the process of filing bankruptcy requires gobs of detail about income and how the debtor spends that income, both before the case is filed and in the future.  On those numbers rides the debtor’s ability to file Chapter [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Waiting to file bankruptcy cost one of my clients over $30,000 in payments to his Chapter 13 plan.  Despite having discussed bankruptcy with me for several years, he put his head in the sand and waited until there was a wage garnishment crisis.  When the dust settled, the price of his Chapter 13 plan was [...]

Popularity: 22% [?]

I’m a fan of Chapter 13 and each time I pitch 13 to a client, I need to explain that though it is called a “repayment plan”, you’re likely repay only a fraction of your debt.
Here’s how your lawyer determines just how much you have to pay to the trustee for the life of your [...]

Popularity: 17% [?]

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. [...]

Popularity: 35% [?]

Don’t overlook payments your Chapter 13 trustee has made in your case last year when preparing your 2007 tax return. Lurking in the list of creditors being paid by the trustee may well be tax deductions to which you are entitled.
My analysis says that payments the trustee makes as your agent according to a [...]

Popularity: 17% [?]