Loans to ailing businesses are becoming a rarity. The credit crunch that has hit the consumer across the country is now biting businesses on the brink driving them into bankruptcy — as well as those on the rebound out of bankruptcy.
Last June, we visited this issue and businesses were not seeing much difficulty placing [...]

Just because your mortgage servicer is bankrupt and your loan is nearly worthless to other lenders, don’t expect you’ll catch a break. That’s the lesson coming from the latest round in the American Home Mortgage bankruptcy.
As we have noted before, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. is in bankruptcy in Delaware. Part of the [...]

It’s tax refund season. If you are currently in a bankruptcy, you should not spend your tax refund before talking to your lawyer! Otherwise the court may deny or revoke your discharge. That is a double-whammy — you’ll have a bankruptcy on your credit report but not wipe out the debts!
The Eighth [...]

Pending bankruptcy legislation would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages in Chapter 13 in order to slow down the foreclosure crisis in this country. Mortgage bankers oppose the bills even though it could ultimately benefit their industry.
Today, they rolled out former Republican Congressman Dick Armey in the Wall Street Journal to attack former Republican [...]

A Missouri judge has disagreed with a Kansas colleague about how Missouri law applies to certain car loans with trade-ins. This is a blow for consumers and unsecured creditors and a win for car lenders. It will cause Chapter 13 plans to pay more to car lenders at the expense of unsecured creditors, [...]

There’s often a balloon in bankruptcy and foreclosures soon after Christmas in part because folks “skip a payment” to buy presents. This is never a good idea and now it is even worse.
First, if you want to keep your home, the mortgage comes before virtually everything. I tell my clients it comes before [...]

The mortgage industry has a plan to help people who are already helping themselves. Adjustable rate subprime mortgage borrowers could get more time at low teaser rates — if they can stay current until the deal gets made. The teaser-freezer plan will sound good and accomplish little.
As we have repeatedly reported (here, here, [...]

The mortgage industry and government are scrambling to find ways to stem the tide of subprime disaster. Some solutions will simply not work for enough people to matter and others are just passing the buck to future taxpayers. The best solution remains allowing consumers to modify their mortgages through the bankruptcy process.
If you [...]

Chapter 13 families sometimes need three cars. Having a newer car with debt can be a necessity, not a luxury. And trustees have to be reminded the world is not as simple as we would like, at times.
These are the lessons I draw in a recent case won by our friend Andy Miofsky [...]

As I discussed this week, Congress is seriously considering legislation to allow consumers to modify home mortgages. At the same time Sam Gerdano, the executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, threw cold water on the idea in an Associated Press interview. This leaves this long-time ABI member to wonder if the [...]