Chapter 13 bankruptcy offers powerful alternatives to fighting with the IRS. Or hiding from the IRS. When you’ve got tax troubles, it’s easy to feel powerless. After all, you’re confronting a federal agency who wrote the tax rules. And they have hordes of employees with nothing else to do. Chapter 13 can turn the tables […]
Mortgage Forbearance And The Hidden Gotcha: Escrow
Got a mortgage forbearance? Seems like a relief. But watch out for the normally escrowed taxes after the forbearance is up. The CARES Act made forbearance on federally backed mortgages available for the asking. But no one talked about the escrow portion of the skipped mortgage payments. Federal guidance urged servicers to offer easy ways […]
SBA Loans Collectible Long Past Business Failure
The SBA has eagle eyes and sharp talons when it comes to collecting from guarantors of business loans. SBA collection tools are ruthless, efficient, and ageless. So I learned when a client consulted me about a business that had failed 12 years ago. Yet the SBA had never sued him, nor had it filed a […]
Debt Collection Breakthrough Protection
The new rule defines attempts to collect a time-barred debt a false or deceptive practice, forbidden to debt collectors. The new prohibition becomes effective November 30, 2021 when amendments to the rules associated with the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act become law. New rule applies to debt collectors Importantly, the FDCPA applies only to […]
Can Your Business Survive The Pandemic?
When the virus shutdown is over, ailing businesses must consider whether to continue.
When You Can’t Pay Your Bills Because Of The Virus
The coronavirus has us locked at home where the worry demons play unrestrained in our heads. Money troubles cause us worry, in “good” times. These are hardly good times. As more and more of us are hit with shelter-in-place orders that keep us from work and our kids from school, we have even more time […]
Bankruptcy Questions Have Few Quick Answers
The caller to my law office kept telling my assistant: I just want to ask Cathy a question. To which my assistant replied: you need to first fill out our questionnaire and make an appointment. But I don’t want a meeting, I just want to ask a question. At which point, both sides of the […]
When Is The Time Right To File Bankruptcy
Just like stand up comedy and batting in baseball, filing bankruptcy is all about timing. Timing your bankruptcy filing is no different. File bankruptcy too early, or too late, and you risk losing assets or advantages that better timing could have assured. Admittedly, you don’t always have the luxury of filing bankruptcy on your own […]
Mortgage Forbearance For Non-government Backed Loans
Are you one of the homeowners whose mortgage isn’t eligible for the government’s COVID forbearance protections? Home loans not backed by the federal government are excluded from the protections for borrowers implemented by FHFA . But as much as one third of US home loans are not backed by the federal government. If that includes […]
