How would you like to reduce your car payment, by lots? In a recent case, Chapter 13 allowed my client to save $7000 off the loan balance based on an examination of the car finance contract. You couldn’t see the issue from the monthly statement. When I got the finance agreement itself, I found the […]
When Can I File Bankruptcy Again
You can file bankruptcy tomorrow, so long as you don’t currently have a bankruptcy case pending. When you can get a discharge in that case is a different story. The Bankruptcy Code limits the frequency of getting a discharge, not the filing and completion of the bankruptcy case. My friend Gene Melchionne wrote a marvelous […]
Personal Assets Can Be At Risk For Your Business Debts
Business debt can bleed over into an entrepreneur’s personal assets. Hearing me say that, my client was dumbfounded. He was aghast that the generous equity in the home he and his wife owned was at risk when his corporate business folded. That was not because the shareholder is liable for the corporation’s debts. A properly […]
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. The rack […]
Bankruptcy Alternatives Cost More, Deliver Less
Bankruptcy alternatives often suck. The on-line story of one customer of a debt settlement company particularly sticks with me. Using the “services” of this company, the poster now has six judgments of record and two garnishments in process. The debt settlement company, however, has its full fee. One man I represented went to a debt […]
California Homestead Exemption: The Truth Isn’t What You Think
“They can’t take my house, whatever happens. Right?” The young man in my office “knew” how the California homestead works: he insisted that his home was exempt as a California homestead, even if he filed bankruptcy. He “knew” that credit card debt was dischargeable. And that “knowledge” lead to his conviction that , in bankruptcy, […]
Which Bankruptcy Chapter Is Right For Me?
Seven or Thirteen? 13 or 7? When you have a choice, how do you decide which chapter of bankruptcy works best? Usually, the choice is driven by the scope of the discharge and the kind of debts you have. More kinds of debts are dischargeable in Chapter 13 and the automatic stay protects you for the […]
Tax Liens Live On After Bankruptcy, Unless….
You mean the tax liens won’t go away when I get a bankruptcy discharge? The client was startled that the lien would live on beyond his bankruptcy. So, if all my debt doesn’t go away, what do I get from the bankruptcy discharge? he asked. I thought the tax debt went away when I filed. […]
The Means Test: Badly Mangled
Another purported financial professional has confidently and conclusively gotten the bankruptcy means test absolutely dead wrong. And used that wrong conclusion to steer someone away from bankruptcy. Mt. St. Helens has nothing on me in terms of venting. How can financial professionals get this so wrong, more than a decade after the means test was enacted? Mangling the […]
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