The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has added its voice to the other nine circuits that have have ruled in favor of wholly unsecured second mortgage lien stripping in chapter 13. This means that debtors in the Eighth Circuit (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Arkansas) are [...]
Craig Andresen, Minneapolis, MN, Bankruptcy Attorney
If you’re considering filing bankruptcy, you probably already know how important it is to properly complete Form B22, the bankruptcy means test, which determines whether you are eligible to file chapter 7, or whether you must instead file a repayment chapter 13 case. The means test also affects how much you must pay into a [...]
Paper checkbook registers? Ask around; they seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs. Why keep track of your checking account using paper, of all things, when the bank helps you do it online with no fuss and no muss? Well, maybe the paper checkbook register question is not as simple as it seems — especially [...]
A U.S. bankruptcy court in California agreed with a chapter 13 debtor that the terms of his chapter 13 plan could prevent a foreclosure, even though he had previously filed a chapter 13 which was dismissed in the one year prior to his second case. Mortgage banks will consider this ruling to be an “end run” [...]
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 [...]
Let’s say you file chapter 7 bankruptcy, and you want to keep paying your vehicle loan and thereby keep your vehicle. The bank sends your bankruptcy lawyer a “reaffirmation agreement,” which is a pre-printed official form issued by the bankruptcy courts. It states that you are continuing to pay the monthly payments on your car loan, and [...]
