For every subprime loan, made to a borrower who could never realistically hope to repay the debt, there is a mortgage broker with a license from the state. The states must investigate how supposed professionals urged on their clients ruinous loans that have lead to the foreclosure explosion.
As we watch waves of foreclosures, investigation [...]

The 9th Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel has just decided Ransom, holding that a debtor cannot take an ownership allowance with respect to a car that is lien free.
Like so much of the poorly written BAPCPA, the means test provision for an “ownership allowance” has been subject to contrary court decisions.  The issue is whether a [...]

Regardless of your age today, someday you will want to retire.  Further, you want that retirement to be comfortable and stress free.  So, what have you saved to make that retirement happen?  More than 30% of Americans have saved less than $25,000 for retirement.
To my mind, the needs of retirement are one of the most [...]

How spouses hold title to their home has far broader implications than the stepped up tax basis at death noted by The Consumerist. The post noted correctly that a house held in community property gets a step-up in basis on both the decedent’s half and the surviving spouse’s half of the property when one [...]

The literature on starting a business is endless; advice on going out of business scant. Here are some thoughts on what to do when you’ve made the painful decision to shut down: my checklist of tasks when ownership has decided to close a business without a bankruptcy.
If you liked that post, then try these…What Does [...]

Three kinds of assets acquired after a bankruptcy case is filed become property of the estate and available to pay creditors: inheritances, life insurance proceeds, and marital property divisions.
The usual rule is that bankruptcy affects only assets that the individual owns on the date the case is filed. These three kinds of [...]

The means test and the related calculation of monthly disposable income are so complex and full of legal uncertainty that asking the debtor to sign the form seems like either a farce or a trap.
The form solicits information about income “received and derived” within the past six months. There is no legislative history to [...]

On Thanksgiving, I’m mindful of how precious the American approach to hopeless insolvency is: a bankruptcy discharge provides the proverbial fresh start to move forward with life. Money troubles do not have to cloud a life forever.
On the personal level, bankruptcy relief ends worry, stress, living on the financial brink.
On the societal level, [...]

Clients often resist Chapter 13 when I first raise the idea, as they assume, wrongly, that as a “repayment plan”, it must repay all their debt. Chapter 13 provides for a stream of payments toward the consumer’s debt, but most often pays creditors only a tiny fraction of their claim.
Prior to the 2005 [...]

Your stuff, for most bankruptcy purposes, is worth what you could sell it for. That doesn’t sound like a startling proposition. But there is something funny going on in the heads of my clients when I ask them what their “stuff” is worth.
Me: What are the contents of your home worth?
Client: [...]