When your spouse files for bankruptcy, s/he must complete income and expense schedules that detail your household income and expenses.  Even though you are not part of your spouse’s bankruptcy, your income and expenses must be shown on the schedules.  Sometimes the schedules will list only the contribution you make on a regular basis to [...]

Popularity: 16% [?]

If it is clear what personal property is yours and what belongs to your spouse, then when your spouse files a bankruptcy there should be little or no detrimental effect on your personal property.  Of course, to the extent your spouse’s personal property is not protected by a bankruptcy exemption, a Chapter 7 trustee can take [...]

Popularity: 24% [?]

Along with medical bills and excessive credit card debt, one of the leading causes of bankruptcy filings is divorce. If a family is barely getting by when it is intact, adding a divorce or separation is sure to cause a worse financial hardship, which might only be able to be remedied through a bankruptcy [...]

Popularity: 22% [?]

If you file bankruptcy, you might be concerned about listing debts included in your divorce decree. Perhaps the divorce decree assigned certain debts to you, and you are worried that the creditors might ask your ex-spouse to pay the debts if you do not.
While this is a valid concern, remember that you do not [...]

Popularity: 50% [?]

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 [...]

Popularity: 40% [?]

When we face any situation in life and we want to change that situation, the first thing we have to do is be honest with ourselves. This is no different when you begin to look at and analyze your financial situation. For many the core of why they are in debt is because [...]

Popularity: 20% [?]

You should treat your bankruptcy lawyer with a great deal of respect…if they deserve it. Yes, I am a bankruptcy lawyer. Every day people who never wanted to even consider filing for bankruptcy come to see me. Besides being reluctant to be in my office, they walk in all stressed out. [...]

Popularity: 54% [?]

My bankruptcy client, Sharon, died after fighting breast cancer valiantly for two years. What happens to her bankruptcy case now?
She was a debtor in chapter 13 bankruptcy paying back her debts, mostly credit cards, as best she could. She paid her plan payments faithfully until the end.
Her husband called me and asked what would [...]

Popularity: 32% [?]

The recent Lodi bankruptcy case illustrates Massachusetts law on tenancies by the entireties.   Nickless v. Lodi (In re Lodi), 2007 Bankr. LEXIS 3075 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2007).
A tenancy by the entireties is a legal fiction designed to protect marital assets in states having English, and not Spanish, roots (most eastern and central states; others [...]

Popularity: 30% [?]

Earlier I posted about a very recent case allowing a trustee to sell a home jointly owned by a debtor and nondebtor spouse despite the Massachusetts tenancy by the entireties. The case ruled that there was no significant hardship to the nondebtor owner from the sale. A hardship will lead to a different [...]

Popularity: 33% [?]