Here’s the consent decree obtained by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against Freedom Debt Relief in mid-2019. Freedom Debt Relief stip. For some perspective on debt settlement as a solution to serious debt, see these posts over more than a decade from Bankruptcy Soapbox. Debt Settlement Is A Dud How Debt Settlement Really Works The […]
Congress Considers Making Student Loans Dischargeable in Bankruptcy
A newly introduced bill in Congress would make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, as they were decades ago. The bi-partisan bill is sponsored by Democrat John Delaney of Maryland and Republican John Katco of New York. Any change to the law touching discharging student loans is a long way down the pike. But this is a […]
Money management and the things we “deserve”
American Express radio commercials are touting a women’s money group, The Smart Cookies, who, we’re told, got control of their personal debt problems within two years. The five women they featured collectively owed $50,000, which seems small relative to the clients I see. But what set my teeth to grinding was one woman’s assurance that it […]
Sell first, litigate later
Meeting with a client with Truth in Lending claims the other day reminded me about the power of the Bankruptcy Code to facilitate the sale of property subject to disputed liens while preserving the claims against a secured creditor. These clients had property they wanted to sell but the amount they owed the holder of […]
30 day respite saves no homes
The latest governmental response to the mortgage mess is an offer for a 30 day hold on foreclosures offered as a voluntary program by six large mortgage servicers. Sorry, folks, but 30 days is not enough time to solve any one family’s housing problem, let alone the country’s problem. The two things that are necessary […]
Behind the numbers of rising bankruptcy filings
My colleague Jonathan Ginsberg pointed out the play that the bankruptcy filing numbers are getting in the press: his local paper reports that bankruptcy filings are soaring. In looking at the filing numbers, it is important to remember that 2006 was an aberrational year in consumer bankruptcy. The bankruptcy “reform” act became effective mid October, […]
Interest rate truth below banker’s bluster
Carmen Dellutri looked at the effect of the mortgage modification bill in Congress and the claims of bankers that interest rates will rise if bankruptcy judges can modify residential mortgages. He pointed out that the mortgage industry has not offered any proof that interest rates would rise. Enter Prof. Adam Levitin. He has looked at […]
All gain by permitting mortgage modification
The adjustable rate mortgage mess is with us: no amount of pussyfooting about whether a legislative change is necessary will make the problem vanish. The choice we have is whether we sit back and let hundreds of thousands of homes be foreclosed or whether we give bankruptcy courts the tools to soften the impact of […]
Peddling economic serfdom to our kids
The high cost of higher education and the non dischargeable nature of student loans have the capacity to ruin lives just as much as to improve them. We encourage kids to go to college and we make loans freely available to pay for it. We don’t tell them that this choice, made before they get […]
