Capital One violated the bankruptcy discharge thousands of times and got caught, as was recently reported by the Wall Street Journal. It filed claims in second bankruptcy cases based upon debts which were already discharged in earlier cases. As my colleague Andy Miofsky wrote, “There is a reason Capital One Bank portrays credit card banks as a horde [...]
L. Jed Berliner, Springfield, MA Bankruptcy Attorney
Bankruptcy trustees in California and elsewhere were notorious for holding a Chapter 7 case open while real estate prices rose (hah! remember those days?) above the protected values. The trustee would then sell the home, forcing a debtor to move – and spend the protected part of the sale proceeds to do so - while recovering money for [...]
It seemed like a dream to paper-burdened bankruptcy lawyers, this electronic filing stuff for bankruptcy courts. Go paperless! Save only signature pages. Prepare your schedules, have the client make the necessary changes and sign where needed, then prepare the PDF documents, use the /s/ digital signature, and file away. Sure, you keep the original “wet” signature [...]
I wrote about attorney fees as a means test deduction some time ago. BAPCPA’s provision, codified at section 707(a)(2)(A)(iv) of the Bankruptcy Code, says that priority claims are deducted from income. Priority claims include a Chapter 13 debtor’s counsel’s fees. See sections 507(2), 503(b)(2), and 330(a)(4)(B). Therefore, our attorney fees are a means test deduction. Oddly, the [...]
Today, I’m going to stand on the shoulders of my colleague Kent Anderson and add to his post on Objecting to Credit Card Claims in Bankruptcy. You want to do this as a Chapter 13 debtor when you are above median or have unprotected assets. In either situation, you want to kick out as many claims [...]
Executory contracts get special treatment in bankruptcy. They are roughly defined as a contract where both parties still have to perform – think lease - unlike a loan where the lender’s obligations ended when the loan was made. Executory contracts need to be listed in Schedule G, giving notice of the bankruptcy case to the other [...]
