Northern California Bankruptcy Lawyer

On The Bankruptcy Soapbox

The Soap Box

Bankruptcy Schedules Are More Than Just Paperwork

By

Filing bankruptcy can make you feel like you are drowning in paper.

There’s your paper; there’s the paper your lawyer needs.  And there’s the paper the court insists on.

Why bankruptcy schedules worth the work

It’s easy to try to skate. To cut corners.  To shut down.

But that paper is critical.

Nearly every question, benefit, or dispute in an individual’s bankruptcy case starts with the bankruptcy papers.

Those papers are called the schedules.  The schedules form the heart of a bankruptcy case.  They lay out what the person filing the case owns, owes, and spends.

And most debtors (those who file bankruptcy) have little idea how much paper is involved til they see the schedules and sign them in their lawyer’s office.

Before they get to the signing, debtors chafe at the endless questions from their attorney about the nature of the debt, who is liable, and whether the debt is disputed.

Is all this effort really needed?

Bankruptcy paperwork matters

Your schedules constitute  the trustee’s first look at you. Well-done schedules project engagement with the process and they tend to limit digging by the trustee.

The creditor schedules control who gets notice of your case and notice of the automatic stay.

Notice to all affected assures that anyone with a right to challenge the discharge of your debt to them is bound by the timelines of the Bankruptcy Code.

Creditors who don’t get notice may reopen the bankruptcy case later to assert that their debt isn’t dischargeable.

Omit assets and you may lose them, as case law limits your right to claim an exemption in an asset you didn’t disclose in the first place.

List it or lose it

Leave out a legal right or pending lawsuit and the defendant in that suit can have your lawsuit dismissed.

Then, there’s the matter of perjury:  the law provides for fines and imprisonment for deliberate untruths on the bankruptcy schedules.  Not something you want to expose yourself to.

What the schedules contain

Seen broadly, bankruptcy schedules list the debtor’s assets; debts; projected budget; and recent financial history.

Asset forms

Secured creditor form

Priority & unsecured creditor form

Since 2005, there’s a schedule for the means test.

You file proof of having taken prebankruptcy credit counseling and statement of your intentions with respect to debts secured by personal property, like your car.

Helping you get them right is part of the job of a bankruptcy attorney.

New bankruptcy forms

The courts are rolling out new versions of the bankruptcy forms which claim to be more “modern” and user friendly.

I find them verbose and impossible to scan easily to get the big picture in a bankruptcy filing.

The new forms read like tax forms and they suggest that you could competently file bankruptcy without a lawyer.  My experience is that, since 2005, it is the rare individual who can correctly file out the forms, much less understand the implications of those forms.

Enlist a professional to assess whether bankruptcy is right for you and whether now is the right time, before you file.  Afterward, it may be too late.

More

How to find the right bankruptcy lawyer

Understand exemptions

What debts don’t get wiped out

Image:  weatbix

Speak Fluent Bankruptcy

By

bankruptcy terms

Bankruptcy has its own language.  If you are considering filing bankruptcy, it helps to know the language spoken there.

Master just a couple of words and phrases, and input from a bankruptcy lawyer starts to make sense.

So, in our continuing campaign for better understanding of bankruptcy, here’s a dozen phrases from the language of Bankruptcy for your meeting with a bankruptcy lawyer.

Essential bankruptcy terms

Petition – the first paper filed in a bankruptcy case that initiates the case.  It invokes the automatic stay. 

Automatic stay – an injunction against creditors that halts collection and foreclosure just because the petition has been filed. 

Schedules  = the balance of the papers filed after the petition to flesh out your bankruptcy case.  

Trustee  – the individual appointed by the Department of Justice  to oversee your filing and to represent the interests of creditors as a whole. 

U.S. Trustee – an employee of the Department of Justice who supervises trustees and monitors Chapter 11 cases with no creditors committee

Means test – a form and a formula added to consumer bankruptcy cases supposedly to ferret out bankruptcy filers who are really able to pay creditors without bankruptcy.

Discharge – the court order that makes your dischargeable unsecured debts unenforceable

Dischargeable – debts that may be wiped out in bankruptcy  

Non dischargeable  debts that are excluded from the  discharge by the terms of the Bankruptcy Code.

Reaffirm – an agreement made after filing to waive the discharge as to a particular debt.  Reaffirmation requires court approval  

Transfer  – any act that changes ownership or title to an asset, or creates a lien on an asset.

Post petition – events that happen after the petition for bankruptcy is filed.

Add some numbers to your list

Because bankruptcy is based on the Bankruptcy Code, bankruptcy types tend to use the number of some important statutes as shorthand.

341 – Section 341 requires a first meeting of creditors in every bankruptcy case.  We call that the 341 meeting.

523 –  This is the section that lists the debts that are non-dischargeable.  Several subsections require an affected creditor to prove his debt is non dischargeable.

727 – This section sets out the circumstances when a discharge can be denied altogether.  It can be brought by a creditor or the trustee for the benefit of all creditors.

Bankruptcy chapters come next

Different chapters of the Bankruptcy Code provide for different kinds of bankruptcy cases that may be filed.

Chapter 7  – a liquidation bankruptcy case available to individuals and business entities, but not trusts or estates.

Chapter 13  – a reorganization case for individuals with debts under certain limits.

Chapter 11  – a more complex reorganization case for individuals and business entities without debt limits

Chapter 12  – a simplified reorganization proceeding for family farmers

Use your words

Now that you have a working bankruptcy vocabulary, start talking to a bankruptcy lawyer to find out how these concepts work in real life.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.  There is no reason why you should immediately understand this very specialized area of law.

Even when you understand the concepts, how those concepts apply to your situation, and how they interact with each other is what’s really important.

Make sure you pick a bankruptcy lawyer willing to take your questions and to deliver answers that you can understand.

More

Questions to ask a bankruptcy lawyer

What makes a bankruptcy lawyer great

What should bankruptcy cost?

5 Essential Tips To Understand Your Mortgage Loan

By

 

mortgage debt

Figuring out what you owe on your home loan can be harder than a calculus exam.

For most people, their mortgage is their biggest debt.  And their home is their most important asset.

Yet, the people accounting for your payments are increasingly incapable of the very basics of their job.  And that makes your job, as borrower and homeowner, more challenging.

Not your parents’ home loan

Things have changed since the local bank made you a loan to buy a house and collected the payments you made on that loan.

Now, home loans get sold to someone else the moment the deal closes.  The right to collect the loan payments is bought and sold separately from the right to the payment amount.

And increasingly, the servicers make mistakes as they cut  corners to make a buck.

What do you need to know to assess whether your loan servicer has got the numbers right?

1.  Principal balance isn’t what you owe

Ask someone what they owe on their mortgage and they’ll recite the principal balance.  The principal balance is the remaining part of the amount originally borrowed that is still unpaid.

Yet you may well owe additional sums:  delinquent payments that are mostly interest;  late fees;  escrow advances; or the junk fees that most delinquent loans are larded with.

Finding the principal balance gets trickier yet if the loan has been modified to include a non-interest bearing amount or some other, non standard adjustment.

So the amount necessary to pay off the loan upon sale, or refinance, may well include charges from the past, plus fees for calculating what you need to pay to satisfy the debt.

2.  Payments are credited to oldest month unpaid

If you fall behind on a home loan, then resume making payments, your payment is credited to the oldest month still unpaid.

So the payment you make in June may be credited to February if you haven’t paid the payment that came due then.

And the servicer will report that you remain due for June, even though you sent a check in June.  It’s all in the rules about how payments are credited under the terms of the note.

3.  Payments may not be credited

Loan servicers seem to have a separate “pocket” labeled “Suspense”  into which they sometimes dump your payment. They’ve got your money, they just haven’t credited it to the amount you owe.

The only reason for putting funds in suspense that seems justified is when the payment is too little to make a full payment on the loan.  Servicers don’t have to credit partial payments.

So, they put the money in suspense until they receive enough money to make the regular payment.

For reasons no servicer has ever adequately explained, I’ve seen suspense accounts in the tens or even a hundred thousand dollars.

So, a mortgage statement that doesn’t address any funds held in suspense doesn’t tell the whole story.

4.  Escrow accounts contain something extra

If your property taxes and hazard insurance are paid by the lender, you have an escrow account.

Under federal law, the lender is allowed to collect more than the sum of the year’s taxes and insurance as protection against the borrower’s non payment.

The extra money, the “cushion”, can be no more than 1/6 th of the annual expenditures.  It remains your money, it’s just held by the servicer should it have to pay when you haven’t paid.

You should get an annual escrow analysis that shows income and expenses in the past year’s escrow account and a projection of the coming year’s expenses.

That projection will determine what you pay in escrow payments going forward.

5.  Statement doesn’t come from owner of note

Ever since loans were bundled up and sold on Wall Street to investment trusts, the work of collecting your payments has been handed off to loan “servicers”.

The owner of the note pays a company to deposit your payments, keep track of fees and expenses, and take action if you don’t pay.

The servicer seldom owns the note, they just own the right to collect the money for the holder of the note.

And servicers change.  Sometimes as often as we change the oil in our car.

When there’s a loan handoff from one servicer to a new servicer, details about anything unusual in the loan account sometimes get lost.

Get behind the monthly statement

The problem of finding out what the servicer thinks you owe became such a problem that regulations written pursuant to the Dodd-Frank act gave borrowers some clout.

Now, a borrower with a home loan can make a Request For Information about their loan and expect answers within a shorter period than under the old law.

If the servicing of the loan has changed hands, the borrower has a window in which to request information from the old servicer, to compare with what the new servicer thinks.

Find the “how-to” for a Request for Information.

More

Your mortgage and your credit report after Chapter 13

Bad mortgage accounting violates your Chapter 13 discharge

Get tax credit for curing mortgage defaults in Chapter 13

How Chapter 13 works

 

 

 

 

 

Personal Assets Can Be At Risk For Your Business Debts

By

Business debt can bleed over into an entrepreneur’s personal assets.  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 operated corporation confines the business debts to the corporate entity.

How to properly sign for your corporation

No,  it’s because he signed the business lease in his individual name.  And because he was a corporate officer who didn’t pay all the payroll taxes for the corporation’s employees.

As a person liable for a debt, his assets (and the whole of the community property in California) are exposed to creditors.

While exemptions protect some assets, up to a specified dollar value,  the non exempt equity in the family home is at risk when debts incurred for business go unpaid.

Understand the California homestead

When business vs. personal distinction matters

The only time that it matters whether a debt is personal rather than business is when figuring the infamous means test.  The means test applies only to those whose debts are “primarily consumer”.

So, debts incurred in business, taxes and debts imposed by law are not “consumer” debts.

If those kinds of debts exceed the total of consumer debts, the means test doesn’t apply.  There is no need to “qualify” for bankruptcy relief by reason of income.

Sole proprietors are fully at risk

As a matter of debtor-creditor law, if your business is a proprietorship, there is no legal distinction between you and your business.  The debts you incur to run the business have the same legal rights to payment from your assets, personal and business,  as the debts incurred for personal living.

When the business is one with the business owner, failure to pay any debt imperils both business and business owner.

Isolating business debt

Corporations and LLC’s are legal “persons” invented to create a distinction between the business and the business owner.  The corporation can incur debt in its name alone, and only it is liable.

The practical catch is that vendors and landlords may not want to extend credit where the only “person” liable is a thinly capitalized corporation. They may insist on a guarantor.  Execute that guarantee of the corporation’s debt, and the individual has staked his personal assets to pay the debt.

The other way owners of corporate businesses become liable for the business debts is inattention.  They never change the vendor accounts to the corporate name when they incorporate.

They are sloppy about how they sign business agreements.

The myth of the corporate credit card

They take a business credit card and don’t realize that they are personally liable.

Who needs bankruptcy

In the case of the entrepreneur I met with, it turns out that the corporation is liable for very little and it can survive as an entity if there is a business future.

The shareholder, however, is a likely candidate for a Chapter 13, to keep the house and pay the debts over time.

More

Is it safe to file a corporate bankruptcy?

Asset protection for everyday folks

How exemptions work

Cutting The Car Loan Down To Size

By

The car loan balance was grossly inflated;  my client owed twice the value of  her car, bought just a year ago.

Before bankruptcy “reform”, she could have stripped the loan balance down to what the car was actually worth.  In essence, the old bankruptcy law gave the lender what it would have gotten by repossession.

But not today.

Bankruptcy “reform” of a decade ago prohibits stripping down the loan balance on cars bought in the past 2+years.

What can Chapter 13 bankruptcy do?

Now that bankruptcy “reform” has shielded the car lender from the real world consequences of the car’s depreciation, the choices seem to be pay or surrender the car.

But not so fast.

Here in Silicon Valley we often retort: RTFM.  In a bankruptcy case, it’s read the underlying contract.

When I did, I found thousands of dollars worth of financed “stuff” that even bankruptcy reform didn’t require the buyer to pay in full.

Ride along as we point out all the excess expense that Chapter 13 carves out of the car loan.

The underwater trade-in

It seems that my client had traded in her previous car  when she still owed $9,000 on it.  The trade-in value (at least in this deal) was $5,000.

So the loan for the new wheels included the $4,000 difference between the old loan and the trade-in credit.  In bankruptcy circles, we call that “negative equity”.

The amount needed to pay off the old car, after credit for the trade-in allowance, was added to the price of the new car, in calculating the new car loan.

And thanks to a 9th Circuit decision called Penrod,  the negative equity portion of the car loan wasn’t entitled to protection from strip-down.

So, we’ve wiped out $4000 of the loan balance, or at least booted it out of the “must pay” category of debts in her Chapter 13, to the “maybe they get something” category of general unsecured creditors.

Gap insurance inflates the balance

As I read on, I found $900 worth of “gap insurance”.  This is extra insurance that covers the gap between the insured value of the car and the loan  balance in the early years of the loan.

Even in car loans not larded with all the add ons and extras found in this deal, once you drive the car off the lot, it is worth less than the purchase price and therefore, usually worth less than the balance on the loan.

If you total the car at the first stop light after leaving the dealership, regular insurance pays what the car was worth just before the accident.  Gap insurance will pay you the difference between the car’s insured value and the loan balance.

Without gap insurance, the car buyer gets a check for the car’s value and still owes the car lender.

But in Chapter 13, the car buyer is protected from that liability by bankruptcy law.

So, my client doesn’t need gap insurance, and we’ve reduced the must-pay portion of the loan by $900.

Service contract is extra

Last on the list of extras plumping the balance of the car loan was a $2000 service contract good for 75,000 miles.

My sense is that the terms of a service contract bought from the manufacturer of the car is carefully calculated to be profitable to the manufacturer.

After discussion, the client decided to reject the service contract and pay for repairs as needed.

We reduced the must-pay balance by another $2000.

Calculating the protected balance

When I added up the extras we carved out of the original loan balance, those extras were 30% of the loan amount.

So, we reduced the car lender’s secured claim that just recited the loan balance on its books  by 30% and got the amount of the loan that was really the purchase-money portion of the deal.  That will be paid in full through the Chapter 13 plan, regardless of what the collateral is now worth.

The car lender still gets a better deal in bankruptcy than it would if they repoed the car in the real world, but then, the car creditors had crafty lobbyists when bankruptcy “reform” was enacted.

Wait, there’s more

We aren’t done whittling this debt down to size, because Chapter 13 allows us reduce the interest rate paid on car loans to today’s market rate.

My client was paying a bit over 10% per year on the car loan.  In Chapter 13, she’ll pay 4-5%.

The ability to change the interest rate on loans secured by personal property, as opposed to real property, was not changed by bankruptcy amendments of 2005.

And this is just one reason I love Chapter 13.

Image courtesy of Daniel Olnes & Flickr.

Who Gets Grannie’s Cash – Grannie Or The Bankruptcy Trustee?

By

joint accounts bankruptcy

When there’s a joint bank account and a bankruptcy filing, good intentions can quickly go sour.

The bankruptcy trustee sees a pile of money in the bank to which the debtor has access, even though the account also bears the name of someone not in bankruptcy.

If the debtor can get the money, the trustee contends, so can a bankruptcy trustee for the benefit of creditors.

Well and good, if the money belongs to the debtor. But what if it’s really someone else’s money?

Do it yourself elder care

Who doesn’t have a joint bank account with someone they care about?

Most often, it’s the adult child’s name on an elder’s bank account.  It’s simple, convenient, and reassuring that if the elder loses capacity, a trusted party has access to pay the elder’s bills.

But if the trusted party loses a lawsuit, or files bankruptcy, all bets are off.  The elder’s money in a joint account  looks like money that belongs to the child.

And the elder’s funds are at risk of being seized to pay someone else’s debts.

Who gets the cash?

The answer lies in state law, since state law determines what the debtor owns, while bankruptcy law determines what happens to that property.

In California, the answer lies in Probate Code 5100 and the statutes following.

“[a]n account belongs, during the lifetime of all parties, to the parties in proportion to the net
contributions by each to the sums on deposit, unless there is clear and convincing evidence of a different intent.” (Cal Probate Code, § 5301, subd. (a))1
“In the absence of proof otherwise” the net contribution of each of the parties is deemed to be an equal
amount. § 5134, subd. (b)(2).
That’s a vast improvement over the prior law that presumed that the people named on the account owned the money equally.
California’s statute is based on the Uniform Probate Code, which drafts laws for adoption by the states to make law more uniform.
So, the result of the “joint account in bankruptcy” issue may be different in other states.

Avoid a fight with the trustee

More important than who wins a legal battle is the chance to skip the fight altogether.

Debtors need to disclose joint accounts to their attorneys.  Don’t fall into the “it’s not my money” trap and keep quiet about it.  As I said, that’s a trap.

Why you don’t want your attorney to fight for you

Attorneys need to quiz their clients about such arrangements and get all the bank account statements.  See what the situation will look like to the trustee.

Know what state law says on the subject.

Consider, if the money in fact is traceable to someone other than the debtor, having that person withdraw it from the joint account before filing.

Make it your goal not to have someone else’s money in an bank account to which the bankruptcy debtor has access.

All involved might consider use of a revocable trust as a vehicle for the elder to empower another to manage their money in the face of incapacity.

This post draws on the always-comprehensive observations of Oakland bankruptcy attorney Larry Szabo.  Thanks, Larry, for your boundless willingness to share.

Image courtesy of Flickr & Duncan Hull

When Your Bank Account Is Seized: California Action Plan

By

 

bank levyTime is short when you get a notice that a creditor has levied your bank account.

California has protections that may allow you to recover money that’s been seized.

But success in getting your money back depends on prompt action and following the procedures.

Bank levy basics

A creditor with a judgment is entitled to levy your bank account to collect the money you owe.

All about judgments

You have an offsetting right to keep some money by claiming exemptions.

A levy only catches the money that is in your account when the levy is served.  It doesn’t affect money deposited to the account later.

Your bank has few choices when a levy is served.  By law, it must hold the money in the account on the day the levy is served for the creditor.

And it must deliver to you a notice of the levy and information about your rights to claim exemptions.

What you can keep

Let’s assume that the money in the levied bank account consists of your wages.

California exemption law protects a minimum of 75% of take home pay.  A non-support creditor simply can’t reach the 75% that is exempt. Cal. Code of Civil Procedure 704.070.

If your wages were already garnished before they were paid to you, what you take home is exempt from further levy.

And, you may be able to protect more than 75% of your wages if you show that you need more than 75% to provide for yourself and your family.

California law grants absolute protection to the assets of and distributions from private retirement plans and retirement-focused profit sharing plans.  CCP 704.115.

Public retirement benefits are also exempt.  CCP 704.110.

Federal law protects Social Security.

Claiming funds exempt

Here’s what you need to do to contest the levy.

When a bank account is levied,  CCP 700.010 requires the levying officer to serve on the judgment debtor these documents:

  • the writ of execution (issued by the court)
  • a notice of the levy
  • a list of exemptions prepared by the Judicial Council

The last item, the list of exemptions, is your key to regaining some part of the bank balance if they are traceable to wages.

The notice of levy contains the critical instructions and the time line:

To claim an exemption, you complete the Claim of Exemption form and give it to the levying officer, typically the sheriff.  If you contend that the levied money is necessary for your support and for the support of your dependents, you also complete the Financial Statement.

The judgment creditor then has a choice.  It can agree that the levied funds are exempt and they are returned to you.  Or, the judgment creditor can set a hearing before a judge to challenge your claim of exemption.

Serve papers on time

The burden is on you as the judgment debtor to complete your clams of exemption and get them back to the levying officer on time.

A successful claim of exemption protects your funds from this levy.  While it may give the creditor some visibility into your finance, it doesn’t solve the bigger problem created by the judgment.

Consider consulting with a credit counseling agency or a bankruptcy lawyer to assess the bigger picture of your finances.  Even if the creditor has a judgment, the debt may still be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

More

Collection lawsuits in California

Property safe from creditors under California law

Myths about bankruptcy

Image © vladimirfloyd

Your Right To Credit Reporting After Bankruptcy

By

 

credit report after bankruptcy

You’ve finished your Chapter 13 and emerged from bankruptcy with your home loan current.

But your credit report is a blank page as to your mortgage.

The mortgage servicer isn’t reporting your payments to the credit reporting agencies [CRA’s].  

Nothing. Nada.  Crickets.

So, even though you’re making regular payments, you’re not visibly rebuilding your credit.

Ask the servicer and they’ll tell you that they can’t report your payments “because of your bankruptcy discharge“.

But they are wrong:  a little-discussed provision of Chapter 13 says that long-term mortgage debt is not discharged in 13.

Yup.  The mortgage loan is not discharged as a personal obligation.

And therefore, there is no bar to the servicer reporting your payments, and every danger should they not report.

Servicer’s obligation to report

Put simply, if a creditor reported to credit reporting agencies  before the bankruptcy was filed, then there is an obligation to report after the bankruptcy.  The “furnisher”, the creditor who supplies information to the credit reporting agency, has an obligation to make the information on file fully accurate.

In contrast to an unsecured debt like a credit card, which should be reported as having a zero balance after the discharge, the mortgage loan after Chapter 13 has a balance.

Presumably, it is also current.  Both facts which should appear on your credit report.

Mortgages excluded from Chapter 13 discharge

I’m certain you will have to cite to bankruptcy law when you challenge the improper reporting on a mortgage loan after Chapter 13.

Here’s the part of the Bankruptcy Code that excludes long term debt like your mortgage.

Section 1328 says,

(a)… the court shall grant the debtor a discharge of all debts provided for by the plan …, except any debt—

(1)provided for under section 1322(b)(5); 

 Section 1322(b), that §1328 refers to,  says

(b)Subject to subsections (a) and (c) of this section, the plan may—

(5) … provide for the curing of any default within a reasonable time and maintenance of payments while the case is pending on any unsecured claim or secured claim on which the last payment is due after the date on which the final payment under the plan is due;

Get mortgage payments reported

If you find that your post discharge payments on your home loan aren’t being reported, challenge the accuracy of what is on your report about that loan with the credit reporting agency.

It is the CRA’s responsibility to see that information in your credit file is accurate.  The CRA is supposed to ask the furnisher to reinvestigate the challenged tradeline.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a how-to, with a template letter, on how to dispute inaccurate information on your credit report.

Get the good information reported.

More

How to find and fix credit reporting errors

Your post bankruptcy to-do list

How 13 Works To Save Your House From Foreclosure

By

save house

Saving a house from foreclosure is the single reason most people file bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy stops foreclosure- that’s a given.

But then what?

How can bankruptcy save the house,  rather than just putting off the inevitable loss?

The mortgage lender has a lien on the house, and liens aren’t discharged in bankruptcy.

So, how does bankruptcy help?  Meet Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is the chapter of choice if your goal is to keep living in the house, as opposed to selling it to realize equity or to avoid the credit hit of a foreclosure.

Chapter 13 imposes a payment plan on lender

Chapter 13 is built to allow the homeowener to cure defaults on long term debts like mortgages.

Gone is the ability of the lender to refuse to take catch-up payments or to insist on cure in a single payment.

This is federal law, and the homeowner is at the helm of this ship.

The homeowner in Chapter 13 proposes a plan for payments to the Chapter 13 trustee.  The trustee, in turn, pays creditors according to the plan.  The usual distribution scheme pays secured claims, like home loans, first.

So, if you are, say, $24,000 behind on your mortgage, your plan can provide that you pay the trustee a monthly payment that catches up on that default.  Chapter 13 plans last a minimum of three years and a maximum of five years.

Your plan will need to provide that you make the on going payments on the mortgage as well.  Each district has its own protocol as to whether you write the check to the mortgage lender for ongoing payments or whether you pay the trustee, who pays the lender.

Once your plan is confirmed, the lender is required to accept the payments.  Absent some post filing breach on your part, the lender is unlikely to have any way to push back against the payment plan.

Trustee challenges to confirmation

Because the confirmed Chapter 13 plan has such power, both the Chapter 13 trustee and the mortgage lender have opportunity and incentive to object to your plan.

coins in a stackThe trustee’s objection is often focused on feasibility.  Does your projected budget show that you can pay enough into the plan to do what’s required?

Remember that the amount necessary to fund the plan is not just the $24,000 that our hypothetical debtor owes on the mortgage.

The Chapter 13 trustee gets a commission on the money she handles in the case.  So, to get $1000 to the mortgage lender, you have to pay the trustee $1100, where the trustee’s commission is the 10% maximum.

Also, if you owe priority taxes, the Bankruptcy Code requires that those taxes be paid in full over the life of the plan.  Likewise,  any delinquent family support claims must be paid in full.

So, the total payments to creditors through the plan may need to cover other creditors as well.

The trustee will look at the total amount your plan provides over the life of the plan and comparing it to your projected income on schedules I and J.  Does it look like you can pay your current living expenses and the amount required by the plan?  If you propose to increase plan payments in future months, is there reason to think you will have the money to do that?

If not, your plan may not be feasible.  If it’s not feasible, it doesn’t get confirmed.

Mortgage creditor fights back

The mortgage creditor has standing to oppose confirmation as well.

Even if the secured creditor doesn’t challenge feasibility or good faith, both required for confirmation, the secured creditor has another, less direct weapon.

When you file bankruptcy, the secured creditor gets to claim not only the missed mortgage payments, but any money the lender has advanced for taxes or insurance.  And, they may have an escrow shortage projected for the current year’s payments.  That’s not to mention foreclosure costs and other fees.

So the lender’s claim may be larger than you expected.

The beauty of Chapter 13 is that the lender has to make full disclosure of those claims and you get to challenge whether the accounting is correct.  You can also challenge whether the fees sought are really allowed by the mortgage.

Mortgage check up at plan’s end

So let’s assume that you get your plan confirmed and faithfully make all the payments required.

New bankruptcy rules work to make sure that you emerge from Chapter 13 fully current on your home loan.

Bankruptcy Rule 3002.1 requires a lender secured by a principal residence to give notice to the court, the trustee and the homeowner of payment changes that occur during the case.

Also, if the required escrow payment changes, or any fees get added to the loan during the case, the lender has to file a notice describing the change.

And the homeowner can challenge changes or additions to the debt.  If it doesn’t get sorted out, a judge will look at the situation and make a ruling.

After the last payment to the plan, if the lender contends you aren’t fully current on the loan, it has to file a detailed accounting showing how much it claims is unpaid.  That accounting is subject to challenge.

Debtor’s rights after 13 is over

mortgage tools for homeownersOne of the few good things included in the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code, in my opinion, are the provisions that make it a violation of the debtor’s discharge to improperly credit payments made pursuant to a Chapter 13 plan.

All too often, the lender or mortgage servicer either has two sets of books on a loan, or the entries it has made for payments during the plan get altered after the Chapter 13 is over.

Bingo, the lender now claims the borrower is in default, and foreclosure looms.

The bankruptcy court is now a forum for challenging those contentions and getting redress, including the borrower’s attorneys fees to make it happen.

Chapter 13 saves houses

The power of Chapter 13 goes far beyond the automatic stay in giving homeowners a chance to keep their homes.

Not only does it get the homeowner some law to counter balance the endless rights of the lender in the loan documents, it gives the homeowner a referee in the form of a bankruptcy judge who can resolve disputes.

Because bankruptcy judges over the last decade have seen some much of the mortgage meltdown and the deterioration of mortgage servicing up close, they are familiar with the problems and less and less tolerant of lender abuses.

Chapter 13 can be a struggling homeowner’s lucky number.

More

Our best advice on keeping your house

Image copyright Fotolia and Jakub Krechowicz

Bankruptcy Busts Taxes If The Timing Is Right

By

taxes dischargeable

Got unpaid taxes for 2015?  Three tax discharge timing rules control when those taxes can be wiped out in bankruptcy.

On April 15, 2019  those taxes reached the end of the line as priority claims in bankruptcy.  Or, the magic date may be October 15, 2019, if you got an extension to file the return.

As non-priority claims, the taxes lose their protected status and can be discharged in bankruptcy.

Discharged, as in, no longer a personal liability.  No longer entitling the IRS to levy and garnish because of a bankruptcy discharge.

Taxes are collectible for 10 years from assessment, outside of bankruptcy.

That’s the view from 30,000 feet on discharging taxes in bankruptcy.  Let’s look at the details and see why  April 15th  is important if you have old taxes you haven’t paid.

Three year rules to discharge taxes

To wipe out taxes in bankruptcy, three rules control.

The first one, the “three year rule”, says taxes can’t be discharged until three years have passed since the tax return was last due.

Taxes newer than that are priority claims.  Priority tax claims aren’t dischargeable.

There are a couple of wrinkles in the three year rule.

First, the rule starts running from the day on which the tax return was last due without penalty.  Without an extension of time to file, that’s usually April 15th.

So, the return for 2015 was due April 15, 2016.  You start counting from then.

Unless you got an an extension, 2014 taxes became dischargeable in bankruptcy on April 16 of this year.

Filing your tax return before the deadline doesn’t get you a head start on the three year rule.

Even if you got an extension and actually filed your return in June, the controlling rule still starts counting from the last day on which you could have filed the return:  October 15th.

Two year rule

The second rule governing the discharge of taxes is the “two year rule”.

The “two year rule” says that if the tax return wasn’t filed on time, it has to have been on file for at least two years to be discharged in bankruptcy.

So, even taxes where the three year rule is met don’t go away in bankruptcy if the return was late and hasn’t been on file for two years.

Recent assessment rule

The third rule, the “240 day rule”,  says that taxes assessed within 240 days of the bankruptcy filing aren’t discharged, even if the other two rules are met.

Tax year must be closed

There’s an additional strategic issue involving taxes and bankruptcy in Chapter 13.  A Chapter 13 plan can provide for payment of taxes  that aren’t dischargeable through the Chapter 13 plan.

But, BUT, the tax year must be complete in order to include the tax in the payment plan.  So, if you file in October, 2019 to discharge 2015 taxes, any tax you may owe for 2019 won’t be included in the bankruptcy case.

Depending on the amount you expect to owe for this year, you may be well advised to wait til January 2, 2020 to file your bankruptcy case.

The important point is well-advised.  Discharging taxes in bankruptcy is highly detailed.  Get good advice from an experienced bankruptcy attorney.

More about taxes in bankruptcy

Tax liens after bankruptcy

What about unfiled tax returns

Chapter 13 is a tax tool

 

Image copyright Fotolia.

643 Bair Island Road
Suite 403
Redwood City, CA 94063
Phone: (650) 694-4700

Categories