The circumstances in which you used your credit card may bear on whether the card debt is dischargeable in bankruptcy.  Section 523 of the Bankruptcy Code excludes from the scope of the discharge debt incurred by fraud.  Let’s look at how fraud could be implicated when you swipe that plastic.
One species of credit card fraud [...]

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Are Borrowers Free to Lie?, talks about a recent Bankruptcy Court decision in the Northern District of California. In re Hill dealt with an attempt by National City Bank to hold the Hills’ mortgage loan non-dischargeable, meaning that, despite the loss of their home due to foreclosure [...]

Bankruptcy is a tragedy to most people. But actually debtors bring their tragedies to court with them and the court must deal with the fallout. Sometimes those tragedies are gut-wrenching.
This week the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down one of these decisions. The case involved the 2001 death of a young [...]

Literary allusions may not be controlling legal precedent, but they can make a point while enlivening an otherwise dry argument.  When the judge in in re Baum, US Bankr. ND Ohio, Feb. 29, 2008 paraphrased “A fool, but an honest fool you remain, Peregrine Took” (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers p. 579) as [...]

While bankruptcy professionals groaned in dismay when Congress reduced the effectiveness of the chapter 13 “super discharge” with the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act, it is worthwhile to remember that chapter 13 will still discharge more debts than chapter 7.  In fact, the chapter 13 discharge is still an effective solution for several types of debts which cannot be discharged [...]

Wiping out student loans in bankruptcy is rare because the law requires a heavy burden:  Proof that repayment creates an “undue hardship” on the consumer.  How rare?  When a contested hardship discharge was granted in St. Louis late last year, most practitioners could not remember the last time it had happened.
To put this in perspective, [...]

Maybe. It depends. Do you owe the IRS any prior monies? Can you claim the monies due to you as exempt?

A Kansas debtor can NEVER discharge debts to two objecting creditors, according to a recent decision by Judge Dale L. Somers in In Re Lina Buchanan Guebert, Case No. 07-41165, D.Kan. Bankr. April 2008.
The harsh order was the result of a long history of at least 12 bankruptcy cases in 12 years by Guebert. [...]

Debts tinged with dishonesty are part of a small group of claims where the creditor has to take action in the bankruptcy to avoid their discharge. Most debts that are non dischargeable in a bankruptcy case are so just because of the nature of the debt: recent taxes, family support, drunk driving judgments.
A [...]

“Section 8″ is a phrase indicating public assistance, or a subsidy, for rental expenses.  Discrimination against recipients violates Massachusetts law.   A state court judgment for $1.00 actual damages, $5,000.00 punitive damages, and attorney fees issued against a landlord who then filed for bankruptcy protections - and lost as to this award.
 Bernal v Benham (In re Benham), [...]