Starting out in business for yourself? Congratulations. Small business, and businesses that were once small, form the tapestry of our economy. I’ve run my own small business for coming 40 years and my favorite clients in my business are other small business people. But, in the euphoria and exhaustion of starting up, don’t put off doing […]
Couple Beats Big Banks Who Ignored Bankruptcy Discharge
A couple of banks found out that it’s expensive to ignore the bankruptcy discharge. For a change, money will flow from banks to my clients. Because even a bank can’t just do business as usual when their borrower files bankruptcy. Equally important, the judge recognized, in dollars, the emotional costs to debtors when their discharge is ignored. […]
Bankruptcy Alphabet: Y is for Yoke
Y, in my Bankruptcy Alphabet, stands for Yoke. Debt is a yoke around the neck of a person. It keeps him harnessed to the weight of past financial decisions and, sometimes, to events over which he had no control. There are times in life when the right course is to put your shoulder to […]
Your Home Is Not A Piggy Bank
Right before the Great Recession, lenders, main stream and fly-by-night, urged us to “tap the equity in your home for what you want today”. California home values were rising. Credit was easy. And we always want something more, don’t we. We need to remember those days, because those sales pitches are back. Back on the radio and […]
Essential Tasks After Bankruptcy To Maximize Your Fresh Start
Got your bankruptcy discharge recently? The end of the bankruptcy case is the start of your new financial life. Now, you’ve got work to do to maximize that fresh start. Save your bankruptcy papers The bankruptcy schedules listed everyone you owed money to when you filed. Those creditors got notice of your case. The […]
What Asset of Failed Business Is Most Valuable?
Usually I rant about mistakes clients made when they incorporated their ongoing business. Come hard times for the business, those mistakes eat into our options for the owners survival when the corporation goes down. Invariably, the vendor accounts remain in the name of the proprietor, the stock may not have been issued, and it’s unclear whether there was an […]
Why I Hate Credit Reporting Agencies
If you have a couple of hours, I’ll count the ways. But this morning, it’s half truths and moralizing by Experian that gets me going. My fellow California bankruptcy lawyer Jay Fleischman published Experian’s explanation of how long your bankruptcy filing stays on your credit record. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is deleted seven years from the […]
Means Test & Taxes: Look Backward Or Forward
One of the mysteries of the universe (well, sorta) was answered for me by my least favorite authority. The United States Trustee wanted to adjust the taxes incurred on the bankruptcy means test form to be taxes as they were projected to be in the future. Fine by me. My position has always been that current […]
Earthquake In California Law Of Community Property And Title
The ground has shifted under California real property law. The change looms as large as a quake along the San Andreas fault that runs through our neighborhood. The words on a real property deed no longer mean exactly what they say when the property owners are married to each other. The newly decided Brace case holds that the […]
How Will Bankruptcy Filers Retire?
Contributions to 401(k) retirement plans during a Chapter 13 are not forbidden, as claimed by a colleague. He paints with far too broad a brush. A better reading of the Parks decision by the 9th Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel is narrower: The debtor cannot deduct from their income their on going contributions to a 401(k) […]
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