The discharge of debts you can’t pay is the goal of a bankruptcy filing. That discharge wipes out debts, making them forever unenforceable. Yet, it isn’t a slam-dunk that your bankruptcy case ends in discharge. The Bankruptcy Code lists 12 situations in which a debtor doesn’t get a discharge. Which is why my colleague Jay […]
Rising From The Ashes Of Financial Disaster
Life doesn’t end with bankruptcy. Bankruptcy doesn’t mean that the good times are all in the past. There’s the future, too. Both the individual and society reap benefits from bankruptcy in ways that you may have missed. So, in my view, Jay Fleichman’s analysis of the bankruptcy of Halsey Minor, the founder of CNET and once […]
Before You List Your Home For Sale: The Essential First Task
Selling your home? A letter to the servicer of your mortgage. You want full disclosure of what charges, fees, expenses and other “stuff” they want to collect from you when your sale closes. For all you know, they’ve stuffed your loan full of fees, not authorized by law or agreement, that pad their bottom […]
What Happens To Liens In Bankruptcy?
Liens in bankruptcy have an uncertain fate. While most liens survive a bankruptcy discharge, some liens get wiped out. Think of mortgages, tax liens, and judgment liens. Each of them is a lien, but some get different treatment in bankruptcy. Some liens can even be reduced or eliminated . Lien basics A lien gives the […]
Do California Seniors Need to File Bankruptcy?
California, it turns out, is a great place to retire. Not because of the cost of living, certainly. It’s great in spite of the cost of living. Because California exemptions are very generous to those of retirement age. Those exemptions effectively make many indebted seniors collection-proof. Bankruptcy for those seniors may seem unnecessary. How exemptions protect […]
Who To Pay When There’s Not Enough Money To Go Around
If you can’t pay your bills, the squeaky wheel should NOT get the oil… At least, not until you’ve assessed all the other demands for oil. That’s a quaint way of saying that your decisions about which of your creditors to pay when you can’t pay your bills should not be based on who is […]
Make Sure Your Mortgage Is Current At Bankruptcy’s End
What do you really owe on your home mortgage when you get to the end of your Chapter 13 case? For years, homeowners couldn’t tell where they were or how to get answers. But with the recent changes to bankruptcy rules, you don’t have to wonder where you stand with your mortgage lender. Starting December […]
Which Debt Collector Threats Should You Be Afraid Of?
Threats are the tools of the trade of debt collectors. Why not? Fear is effective to get people to do stupid things. That’s why debt collectors use it. Pay up or… Terror shuts down rational thinking and upends priorities. As a bankruptcy attorney, I meet lots of people because they’ve panicked. A debt collector has threatened […]
What Everyone Knows About Bankruptcy: Not
Lots of people profess to know all about bankruptcy. Whether they have good information or not. But other professionals should know better than to advise people about the workings of bankruptcy. And if they don’t know better, they should be made to pay, in some exquisitely painful way, for the harm they inflict with bad […]
The New Rules Of Asset Protection
I coined a new rule about asset protection schemes after meeting with a bankruptcy prospect: If the asset protection plan is too complicated for the owner to explain, it probably won’t stand up to challenge. This man had paid an attorney a fistful of money to create LLC’s and limited partnerships, each of which held fractional […]
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