I talk with clients about walking away from underwater houses day after day. * The mortgage payments on their home eat up fifty percent or more of their income. They’re struggling now, and the mortgage will reset soon. Attempts to modify the mortgage are fruitless. They expect a foreclosure notice any day. Yet despite the pain and the […]
The Struggle To Surrender Underwater Real Estate
How difficult it can be to surrender real property in bankruptcy when you have no hope of paying for it. After all, the lender takes a mortgage on the property so they can take it from you if you don’t pay. My client’s bankruptcy plan said he would make no payments on the rental’s mortgage […]
Terminate Cell Phone Penalties in Bankruptcy
I’m accustomed to advising those on the verge of filing bankruptcy about big ticket debts like mortgages, student loans, and back taxes. I was surprised when a client, resigned to letting her house go to foreclosure after the bankruptcy, was absolutely delighted to know that she could free herself from her unhappy relationship with Verizon Wireless […]
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 […]
Zombie Debt is Naughty, Not Nice
Despite his bankruptcy discharge, my former bankruptcy client has just been bitten by naughty credit reporting, and the interim results aren’t nice. When several years passed since the bankruptcy, my client thought he’d caught and controlled the old and the inaccurate credit reporting. Four years after the discharge was entered, a mortgage servicer has just […]
Free Retirement Advice By Professional Advisor Comes Up One Tool Short
The 65 year old woman featured in the newspaper’s Money Makeover series got a free review of her financial situation by a professional financial advisor. Over her working lifetime, she’s been the source of financial support for an extended family, including her aged mother and a disabled sister. Her aid to her family has come […]
Car Crazy In Bankruptcy Court
My client wants to keep paying on his car after bankruptcy. The lender wants my client to keep paying on his car after bankruptcy. Yet it took an afternoon in court for a hearing set by the judge on approval of my client’s reaffirmation agreement with the car lender to get everyone what they wanted. What […]
Taking my own advice Part Two
The return receipt on my “do not contact” letter to ATT arrived at my office showing receipt on July 6th. Between July 7 and July 10, we got seven calls at home about the disputed account; on July 12th, we got a call from NCO who announce that the account has been turned over to […]
What credit card debt hides
I met with a couple yesterday with over a $100K in credit card debt. When the bankruptcy schedules are filed, this will look like a case of consumer spending run amok. What, the casual observer will ask, did they buy for that amount of debt? Medications, gas, and groceries, is the answer. Because this 50ish […]
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