When her soon-to-be-ex filed bankruptcy, my client got a 1099-C for the joint credit card. The form claimed that the debt was cancelled. Therefore, she had additional income equal to the card balance. Only, none of the statements on the 1099 were true. The debt wasn’t discharged as to the non filing spouse. One spouse’s […]
Divorce And The Ticking Debt Bomb
Debts of the marriage often outlive the marriage itself. And, those left-over debts are nothing but trouble. But too often, divorcing couples don’t mop up the joint debts they held during the marriage, only to have the situation blows up years later when one ex-spouse hits financial trouble. Here’s a true story that illustrates the danger. […]
Worthless Mortgage Liens Keep Homeowner At Risk
The client originally had his choice of bankruptcy chapters. He could file Chapter 7, get quick relief, and put “everything” behind him. Or his could file Chapter 13, propose a plan that would strip the mortgage lien and pay the taxes that wouldn’t be discharged in Chapter 7. He chose 7, and briskly got a […]
Why Your Mortgage Lender Won’t Send Statements After Bankruptcy
Lists of stupid laws are lots of fun, when they don’t really touch your life. But the law that gags mortgage lenders after bankruptcy isn’t funny. Preventing lenders from sending mortgage statements to homeowners after bankruptcy just sets families up for foreclosure and rewards servicers with the fees that follow default. It’s just a stupid […]
Hidden Dangers In Tapping The Reverse Mortgage Piggybank
Actor Fred Thompson used to appear on my Sunday morning news program every week touting the benefits of a “government insured”, safe, reverse mortgage. Get the money you deserve to live the good life, he urged. I’m watching the aftermath of that sales pitch play out for one of my clients, and it’s not “the […]
IRS Shakedown Happening In Bankruptcy Court
The latest IRS scam is happening in bankruptcy, out in the open. Now usually when I write about IRS scams, I’m talking about genuine bad guys either pretending to be the IRS to hijack your money or pretending to be you to the IRS, to hijack your money. But nobody is pretending in the trick […]
How Avoiding Probate Ended Up In Bankruptcy
Do it yourself seems so industrious and self reliant. And we’ve been bombarded with books, speeches and courses on the evils of probate. So, I guess it should be no surprise when people try DIY schemes to both avoid probate and avoid lawyers who create probate-avoiding trusts. Yet they forget an unavoidable truth: the transfer […]
Loan Modification: The $100,000 Mistake
The job of a mortgage servicer is to collect loan payments and keep track of what’s owed on the mortgage. That shouldn’t be too hard. But the evidence is that they don’t do that basic job very well. Throw a loan modification into the mix, and who knows what you’ll get. Accounting for modification […]
How Their Telephone Can Ruin Elders
The elderly couple was suddenly in financial trouble. The two mortgages on their home were a couple of months delinquent. Their bank account had just been levied by the state taxing authority. They hadn’t filed tax returns in several years. From the outside, it didn’t seem like anything had changed. Yet their financial world was […]
Drive-in bankruptcy?
We got a call about three o’clock the other afternoon from someone who wanted to come in that afternoon and file bankruptcy that day. When my partner hesitated, the caller responded, “Well , you are open now aren’t you?” I had a mental image of one of those parking lot, drive up coffee vendors, selling […]
