Bankruptcy Blog

The Bankruptcy Court is not the place to be dishonest. Otherwise you could become the subject of a press release by the U. S. Attorney’s Office, like a recent one titled: “LOCAL BUSINESSMAN ENTERS GUILTY PLEA TO BANKRUPTCY FRAUD.” Although bankruptcy crimes are quite rare and seldom a reason for concern, avoid the risk by being honest and thorough with your bankruptcy attorney and trustee, as well as on all your bankruptcy documents.

If your ex-spouse filed a Chapter 13 case in the bankruptcy court, often it can harm you, even more than if he or she had filed a Chapter 7. But there are many other situations when a Chapter 13 filing doesn’t hurt you, and often can actually help you a lot.  Here are some of those good situations.

Although at first a Chapter 13 payment plan may not seem to be a good way to deal with student loans, in fact it has a number of important advantages over Chapter 7. This blog outlines those advantages.

Even though most student loans cannot be discharged (written-off) in bankruptcy, there are often sensible ways to deal with student loans while filing a bankruptcy for the rest of your debts.  There are many possible options, including “deferments” and “forbearances,” “consolidations,” “statutory discharges” and “cancellations,” “reasonable and affordable payment plans,” and “income-contingent” and “income-sensitive repayment plans.” What are all these and how can they improve my life after bankruptcy?

Whether you can file a Chapter 7 case depends partly on whether your recent income was above or below the “Median Family Income” published by the U.S. Census Bureau. A couple months ago these income benchmarks changed. Because of the ravages of the tough economy, in most parts of the country these “Median Family Income” amounts went down instead of up as they consistently had in the past.  What does that mean for you if I want to file a Chapter 7 case?

A short sale of your home will more likely succeed when it done as part of an organized strategy in conjunction with filing a bankruptcy case.

Although home prices have started to increase in the majority of U.S. metropolitan areas, not in Portland. According to the National Association of Realtors quarterly report of Metropolitan Area Existing-Home Prices released a few weeks ago, the price of homes sold in the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metropolitan statistical area during 1^st quarter of 2010 was 4.5% lower than during the 1^st quarter of 2009. Out of the 152 metropolitan areas, Portland was one of only four in the entire country in which home prices were successively lower in each of the last four quarters.

There has been lots of noise in the news over the last year or so that the next bad economic shoe to drop will be in commercial real estate—the shopping centers, strip malls, office buildings, factories, apartment buildings, and hotels/motels of the nation. What’s this about? Why are economists so worried about it and why does it matter to you?

During the last two weeks we’ve been talking about bankruptcy crimes, what they are and some real-life examples. We’ve emphasized that only a very small portion of bankruptcy filers are ever accused of such a crime. Still, consumers and business owners considering bankruptcy should know about bankruptcy crimes, to know when to worry and when not to worry about them.

So far we purposely did not get into the sensational cases, to avoid the misimpression that bankruptcy crimes only happen in big cases. But now, here’s a taste of some more sensational, even outrageous, bankruptcy crimes.

You may have heard of “bankruptcy crimes” and wondered what they are. You might even have worried about being accused of such a crime. We tell you here what you need to worry about bankruptcy crimes, and maybe more importantly what you DON’T need to worry about them.

Most of the time bankruptcy is used to get protection from creditors. But sometimes you wish that you COULD take care of some of your special obligations—like child support and other divorce responsibilities—but you can’t because of the relentless pressure from all your other creditors. This blog shows how a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing can help you take care of the obligations which may be the most important to you, the ones to your kids and your ex-spouse.

This time of year, you may be really counting on getting your income tax refunds. But watch out if you are thinking about filing a bankruptcy. The timing of that filing can make the difference between keeping those refunds and losing them to your creditors. Here’s how it works.

In this blog we get really basic. The most basic kind of bankruptcy is a Chapter 7 case. What is Chapter 7 at its core, at its heart?

The protection you get from most creditors through the homestead exemption does not apply to some categories of creditors. We listed the most important of these categories in recent blog called The Homestead Exemption in Action. We said there that even though these special creditors can defeat the homestead exemption, they can still often be handled in a favorable way through certain bankruptcy procedures. That’s what we talk about here. Plus how sometimes owing money to these special creditors can even be turned to your advantage.

Last week’s blog introduced the Oregon "homestead exemption." We explained how to qualify for it, and the kinds of homeownership it applies to. This week we tell you how this important tool actually works, and how it protects your home from some creditors but not others. Then In the next couple weeks we will show how bankruptcy can effectively handle the creditors that could otherwise defeat the homestead exemption.

When a business goes out of business, its owners can be left owing many of the tax debts of that business. Have you recently shut down a business and are concerned about whether you are personally liable on any of the taxes of the business? Or have you been closely involved in the finances of a business in which you were NOT an owner, and that business was shut down and still owes taxes? Finally, are you considering shutting down your business but need to know how to deal with its remaining tax debts?

In our blog two weeks ago we talked about some of the most basic and important home-saving tools in Chapter 13:  1) the “automatic stay,” 2) curing mortgage arrearages, and 3) catching up on property taxes. In last week’s blog we talked about some of the more sophisticated tools that Chapter 13 may be able to provide for your home: 1) junior mortgage “strip-off,” 2) judgment lien “avoidance,” and 3) cure and release of income tax liens. This week we wrap up this series with a set of tactics that pull all this together. You might want to read the other two blogs before this one.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy helps you save your home with a set of different powerful tools. In fact so many that we will discuss just some of the most important ones here in this blog, and then more in next week’s blog.  As helpful as these home-saving tools are, they each come with conditions and limitations. Knowing these pluses and minuses helps you get the most out of a Chapter 13 case.

In the last two months we’ve written blogs called "I Need a Divorce and a Bankruptcy: Which Comes First?" and “How to Protect the Rights in My Divorce Decree from My Ex-Spouse’s Bankruptcy?” Now in this blog we clear up some major misconceptions about what you can and can’t do with spousal and child support obligations in your bankruptcy case.

For the last two years many programs have been put into place to try to stem the tidal wave of foreclosures. The early efforts flopped for many reasons but mostly because banks and mortgage servicers had more incentives to AVOID doing mortgage modifications than to approve them. Mortgage servicers particularly receive many forms of additional fees through the processing and foreclosure of delinquent mortgages. This creates a huge disincentive for them to do modifications. There is some evidence now that the Obama Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is helping many more homeowners than earlier efforts. That’s because it at least directly addresses this problem by including some incentives to mortgage servicers to go through the trouble of processing modifications. But servicers’ fees continue to play a big role, and so anyone dealing with or considering a mortgage modification needs to understand them.