A Wisconsin judge allowed Chapter 7 debtors to contribute to retirement savings in the face of a means test challenge claiming savings was an abuse of the bankruptcy system. Hurray!? Another in the small band of those touting savings. In the Mravik case, the debtor’s Chapter 7 means test, which does not provide for retirement…
Those who elect to let their house go to foreclosure will find renting cheaper even than renting last year. A Business Week study named Sunnyvale-San Jose and Oakland-Fremont to the top ten cities where rents fell the most. I usually lead clients with homes in foreclosure through an analysis of “should they keep the house.“ …
My friend bankruptcy attorney Doug Jacobs tackles client guilt about filing bankruptcy by getting the client to consider how much more than the original charge they’ve paid the credit card company over time. I have success getting clients to consider what they could do with the money they are now paying out on minimum payments…
We’ve poured money into the nation’s banks, and no amount of money seems to be sufficient to restart the flow of credit through the economy. Our leaders, our newspapers, and our populace all feel we’ve been shorted. What did the banks do with the money if they didn’t lend it out? If you were the…
Defending a lawsuit claiming it engaged in fraud and misrepresentation when it strung borrowers along with the promise of a loan modification, Countrywide asserted that its ads promising help with loan modification was just puffery. It’s a startling admission from a mortgage lender already in the glare for its lending practices. But, hey, we can…
I’ve joined forces with my Bankruptcy Law Network colleague Doug Jacobs to launch a new blog about judicial mortgage modification in California. We will share developments as S. 61 and other legislation is considered by Congress. We hope, of course, to follow its enactment and use in bankruptcy courts in the Northern and Eastern Districts…
The NBC Sunday morning new shows were again talking about moral hazard as applied to efforts to stem the tide of foreclosures. This concept looks at the message we send when we rescue a homeowner who took out a bad loan and give nothing to the prudent homeowner who didn’t take an exploding ARM loan….
Credit cards the business owner thinks of and uses for business may not be a debt of the business at all. Andy Miofsky addressed the fact that where the shareholder has guaranteed the debt of the corporation, the shareholder’s discharge in bankruptcy doesn’t relieve the corporation of liability. Lots of owners of incorporated small businesses…
David Leibowitz points out at the Bankruptcy Law Network that the debtor’s right to a tax refund is an asset of his bankruptcy estate. Depending on the exemptions available, the debtor may be entitled to keep it, or it may have to be turned over to the trustee. A common misconception is that the refund…
I’m giddy at the prospect of modifying mortgages in Chapter 13 as an alternative to Truth in Lending suits. While I’m finding lots of violations, and they give me levers against the lenders, the TILA statute contemplates that the wronged borrower return the difference between their damages and the original loan to the lender. In…
