What can you do when it becomes obvious that your business should close? The hardest part of being in business is recognizing when the business has no future and needs to close. Yet the overwhelming majority of new businesses fail within 5 years. So you’re not alone. In fact, in the face of the pandemic, […]
Bankruptcy Is Not Your Last Resort
Every personal finance guru intones that “bankruptcy is the last resort.” In my opinion, they have it wrong: bankruptcy is the big gun in getting out of a financial mess. But it shouldn’t be the last thing you try to get financially healthy. You shouldn’t mess around with lesser solutions if those solutions don’t do […]
Bankruptcy Changes Your Life, Only Not The Way You Think
How will filing bankruptcy change my life? My clients ask all the time. They imagine the remainder of their life after bankruptcy with neither credit cards nor credit. Outcasts in our economy. Shunned by all. Crippled by bankruptcy. They can see a scarlet “B” tattooed on their foreheads to mark them forever as Bankrupts. My […]
California’s Good Deed: Passing Real Property At Death
The horror stories about do-it-yourself estate planning are both plentiful and tragic. Between the fear of probate and the fear of legal fees, inventive people invent inexpensive strategies for passing property to the next generation. Adding someone to the deed is the most common one I see. It works like this: in order to see […]
Get A Bankruptcy Discharge Even Without Making All Your Payments
You can get a Chapter 13 discharge even without making all the plan payments you promised. There are hoops to jump through and facts to marshal to get that discharge, but it’s possible. The Bankruptcy Code provides for a hardship discharge in Chapter 13 to those whose failure to complete their plan is due to circumstances […]
Sloppy Mortgage Servicers Prey On Borrowers
Given the way they behave, you’d think mortgage servicers actually flew a pirate flag over their operations. They cash your check for the mortgage payment, then who knows what they do with it and what they credit it to. Outside of bankruptcy, screw ups in handling your payments are a breach of the contract […]
Turned Down For A Bank Account? Fight Back
Turned down when you tried to open a bank account? We have a clue why. We all know the big three credit reporting agencies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. But if you’ve been turned down for a bank account, you need to meet the other players in this space: the checking account screening companies. Certegy ChexSystems […]
List It Or Lose It: Why It’s Critical To Tell All
It is vital to include everything in your bankruptcy list of assets. Transparency is the essential ingredient in bankruptcy. The name of the game is disclosure. In exchange for that full disclosure in your bankruptcy papers of assets , debts, and financial history, you get a discharge. Do it right, everyone with notice of your […]
Is Home Equity A Substitute For Retirement Savings
My home is my retirement plan. If I had a dollar for every time a client said that, I could retire today. But that approach to funding your old age only works if…. Sell your house to retire The value in your house makes your balance sheet strong, but doesn’t put food on the table […]
10 Top Tricks Of The Lending Industry
The tricks lenders use to sell you a bad loan are limited only by the imagination of the lender. And they’re all conceived with one end in mind — big profits, not helping you. And, unlike Pinocchio’s ever-growing nose, the consumer doesn’t see any tell-tale signs that warn of deception at work when credit’s being […]