The liability of a co signer is the single most common misunderstanding about the law that I see. Put bluntly, a co-signer is just as liable for the debt as the primary borrower. Co sign someone else’s debt and you put yourself in the creditor’s cross hairs. That should make the hair on the back […]
All You Need To Know About Bankruptcy Stay & Pending Litigation
When a trial date looms, bankruptcy may look better and better to a defendant. Bankruptcy can be the emergency exit from a bad situation that is about to get worse. That’s because every bankruptcy case comes with an automatic stay . That’s a federal court injunction automatically entered when a bankruptcy case is filed, protecting the […]
We Live In An Economic House Of Cards
I’ve long said to bankruptcy clients that bankruptcy can’t fix an income problem, it can just ameliorate an outgo problem. In the last round of frantic bankruptcy filings a decade ago, one symptom seemed to be that too many families in the Silicon Valley couldn’t really afford to live a middle class life here. They […]
Out of Luck If You Skip A Creditor?
So, you slipped up and left a creditor out of your bankruptcy schedules. Can you add an omitted creditor after the fact? In the fateful words of a careful lawyer, it depends. Depends on when the amendment is made and what chapter you’ve filed. And the effect of adding a creditor varies. Let’s walk through […]
Unicorns, Wookies, And Medical Bankruptcies
What do Unicorns, Wookies, and Medical Bankruptcies have in common? Each is a figment of our imagination. None of them exists in the real world. Medical bankruptcy does not exist, despite the suggestion in a recent FoxBusiness article, where the author talked about medical bankruptcy contrasted to personal bankruptcy. When it comes to medical bankruptcy, consumers […]
Cut Tax Penalties In Bankruptcy
Get in tax trouble and the tax penalties often grow huge. What starts as a manageable problem can soon tower over you. Breathe deep; there is a solution. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can cut tax penalties down to size. All tax penalties discharged in 13 Old or new, large or small, Chapter 13 discharges all unsecured […]
How Does Your Household Budget Measure Up?
The living expenses your paycheck has to cover go on and on. Each dollar is stretched; each expense clamors for attention. Too often, the expenses go on long after the available money is gone. What seem like immediate needs squeeze out those necessities that only come round occasionally but in big numbers: car repair, medical incidents, […]
Whopping exemption for CA 529 college accounts
A substantial new California exemption snuck into law in 2021, the college savings account exemption. It protects 529 college savings accounts from the creditors of parents. The exemption applies in all California collections and to California bankruptcies when the CCP 704 exemptions are selected. The eyeopener is that a parent (or other donor) can contribute […]
Can You Sell Assets Before Bankruptcy
Thinking about filing bankruptcy? Folk wisdom supplies many “rules” about the period leading up to actually filing bankruptcy: This kind of thinking will have you frozen in time and space like this insect in amber. Only, this folk “wisdom” is all wrong. Here’s how to manage money before filing without messing up your right to […]
The Worst Reason To Choose Debt Settlement Over Bankruptcy
The guy with an old debt asked if bankruptcy or debt settlement would cause greater damage to his “credit”. The money advice columnist gave the right answer to the wrong question. She got it backwards. She advised that bankruptcy was more damaging given that the nagging debts were already three years old and would drop off his […]
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