clarkandwashington

I recently ran across an interesting blog post from Mark Markus, a bankruptcy lawyer in Los Angeles, who noted that the characterization of a your receipt of money as a gift is significantly different from characterizing that receipt of money as a loan. If the funds received are a gift, the funds would count as income for means test purposes and these funds (assuming they are not yet spent) would be an asset of your bankruptcy estate and potentially reachable by a bankruptcy trustee. By... Read Full Story

Last May, we wrote about an 8th Circuit decision which held that inherited IRAs were protected assets in bankruptcy .   Florida is part of the 11th Circuit, not the 8th Circuit, which means that bankruptcy judges and federal court judges are not bound to follow 8th Circuit Court of Appeals precedent, although circuit court decisions are often influential. In the 8th circuit case, a bankruptcy trustee argued that inherited IRAs deserved less protection that IRAs that contained money from the... Read Full Story

When it works as planned, Chapter 7 serves to discharge (wipes out) your unsecured debt, while allowing you to keep most or all of your property.   If you have secured debt in your Chapter 7, you generally have the options of: surrendering your property and walking away from any associated debt redeeming your property by paying the secured creditor the fair market value in one lump sum reaffirming your property by re-entering into a contract to pay the installment note continuing to... Read Full Story

Under current bankruptcy law, most types of student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.  Specifically, Section 523(a)(8) of the Code makes non-dischargeable: an educational benefit overpayment or loan made, insured, or guaranteed by a governmental unit, or made under any program funded in whole or in part by a governmental unit or nonprofit institution; or an obligation to repay funds received as an educational benefit, scholarship, or stipend; or any other educational loan that... Read Full Story

Judicial foreclosure laws in Florida require lenders to file a lawsuit against a homeowner.  These lawsuits should include documentation showing that the plaintiff has standing to sue and that the homeowner is in fact delinquent. Some mortgage servicing companies, however, are not following the requirements of the law.  In some cases, documents are being forged and delinquency claims are based on nothing but someone's imagination. In this video, Florida representative Alan Grayson... Read Full Story

[this post is written by guest bloggers Lex Rogerson, who is a bankruptcy lawyer in the Lexington/Columbia area of South Carolina and Russell DeMott, a Charleston, South Carolina bankruptcy attorney ]. If you have any kind of claim that could produce money or property for you, it’s critical that you tell your bankruptcy attorney all about it.  Here’s why. Everyone who files bankruptcy is required to file a set of schedules that list all their debts and all their property.  These schedules... Read Full Story

In previous posts, we have been discussing some of the rights debtors have under bankruptcy law, such as the ability to choose when to file and the protection from having to pay creditors after debts have been discharged fair and square. Here, we talk about yet another way in which bankruptcy law seems to favor the debtor, this time in regard to the way in which Inherited IRAs are protected in bankruptcy (in a way similar to how normal IRAs are protected). When you file for bankruptcy, your... Read Full Story

If your vehicle or other property has been repossessed, it may be possible to get your property back when you file for bankruptcy. If you are timely and have a good attorney, the creditors can potentially be forced to return the property to you. Examples of ‘other property' that can be repossessed include jewelry, furniture, electronics, home appliances, and cash. Here we will focus on your repossessed vehicle, however, which is the most common property repossessed, and how to get it back... Read Full Story

If you are in the United States military you don't need to worry about bankruptcy! The government created the SCRA, short for the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act, to provide protection against bankruptcy for members of the military. The SCRA ensures that military members are not distracted by financial troubles such as bankruptcy and can focus on their military responsibilities. Here are some ways the SCRA protects you from bankruptcy while you are serving in active duty in the military... Read Full Story

Sometimes debtors file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy but then realize that they should have filed for Chapter 7. When you file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you will be repaying all or a portion of your debt by making installments to the Chapter 13 Trustee that have been outlined in the payment plan and approved by the bankruptcy court. The Trustee is then responsible for paying the creditors that you owed. Sometimes debtors that have filed for Chapter 13 realize that they are unable to make their... Read Full Story