It’s bad enough when the client loses their home to foreclosure, but it’s a double whammy when the tax bill arrives for money they never saw. Scope out the tax traps in the world of indebted clients at a 2 hour workshop for lawyers and tax professionals April 9 at Lincoln Law School. Be prepared […]
Debtor Bites Collector Over Stale Debt
The collection law firm had to pay, not the debtor, when they sued a disabled man on a stale debt without facts to validate the claim. The consumer got an award of actual and punitive damages totaling $311,ooo from the debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act . The case, McColllough v. Johnson, Rodenburg & […]
Who files bankruptcy?
The latest news from the office of the courts is: lots of people. Sixteen percent more bankrupties than last year in San Jose. The release of the 2010 statistics brought a flurry of journalists to my door. In preparing to talk to a TV reporter who wanted to know what changes I had experienced in […]
Zombie Debt Collectors Must Come Clean
Debt collectors in New Mexico must now warn debtors that a debt they are trying to collect may be too old to be enforced by lawsuit. The warning must also tell the consumer that any payment on the old debt will restart the statute of limitations. This comes about by rule instituted by New Mexico’s […]
New California law protects sellers in short sales
Effective January 1, 2011, a lender who approves a short sale of California residential property may not look to the seller for the shortfall. The addition to the California Code of Civil Procedure at Section 580(e) applies only to properties of one to four units and has an exception if the seller commits waste or […]
Word rant: seizure of mortgaged homes
Perhaps I’m feeling particularly crotchety today, but the use of the word “seize” to describe foreclosures seems to me a bit overblown. Headlines like these abound: California Foreclosures Jeopardize Renters as Banks Seize HomesBanks Seize 288K Homes in Q3,Banks seize record number of homes Webster’s dictionary offered this as one definition of seize: To take […]
Student loans: sinking the parents
The numbers on repayment of a student loan for four years at a private university are brutal. No matter how enriching the education, the loan may be the financial death of the graduate. But what sorrows me is the plight of the parents of those same students who have guaranteed or cosigned those loans. Cosignor equally liable […]
Rant on realtors claiming to be a profession
Or maybe this is just a continuing, disappointed sigh that this group, who tries to build a profession around selling houses, is itself oversold. Latest example arose where a homeowner was referred to me by his accountant, concerned about a pending short sale of the client’s home. By our rough calculations, the short sale of […]
Changing view of when to file bankruptcy
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lanning and the application of the infamous “means test” to a client’s changing income picture has changed my advice about when to file bankruptcy. My standard advice to clients newly unemployed who see clearly they won’t be able to pay their existing bills has been to wait. Wait until […]
What happened to encouraging Chapter 13
Used to be, bankruptcy law was organized to encourage debtors to file Chapter 13 and repay some part of their debts. Some part of that encouragement came in the form of the Super Discharge: the ability to discharge debts incurred by bad acts; unfiled tax debt from long past tax years; and unfiled claims in […]
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