The Huge Advantages of Dealing with “Priority” Debts in Chapter 13
Chapter 13 is usually a much better tool than Chapter 7 for tackling priority debts. In my blog on Tuesday, April 17, I showed how Chapter 7 CAN be a good tool to pay off or pay down your priority debts—which are mostly back child/spousal support payments and taxes. BUT it takes an unusual situation […]
Protecting Yourself When Your Business Has to Throw in the Towel
If you’re seriously considering closing down a struggling business, you are likely very concerned about personal damage control: how do you end the business without being pulled down with it?
Do I Have Any “Priority” Debts and Why Are They Such a Big Deal?
As you likely know, all your debts are not treated equally in bankruptcy. Most debts can be discharged (legally written-off), but some can’t, or can only be under certain circumstances. Some debts are unsecured while others are secured by collateral. How the secured debts are treated depends on the collateral’s value, and whether you are […]
Your Sole Proprietorship Business Rescued by Chapter 13
Do you have a small business in your own name that would be successful if it only got a break from its debts? A Chapter 13 case would likely greatly reduce both your business and personal monthly debt service while you continued to run your business.
Is the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) 2.0 New and Improved Enough to Help YOU?
Under new rules coming on line, HARP is now available for refinances no matter how far your home is underwater. The 125% loan-to-value cap is no more.
Does availability of credit increase or decrease bankruptcy filings? Both!
Do more people file bankruptcy when credit is available, or rather when credit gets squeezed? Law Professor Robert Lawless argues: “The long-term growth in U.S. consumer bankruptcies closely tracks the long-term growth in U.S. consumer debt. When the financial crisis hit, consumer credit dried up, and outstanding consumer debt experienced unprecedented declines. There are fewer […]
Ten Terrific Tools for Saving Your Home through Chapter 13–Part 2
Here are the other 5 powerful home-saving tools. Chapter 13 isn’t for everyone. But these tools, especially in combination, can often give you what you need to tackle and defeat your mortgage and other home-debt problems.
Guess Which of Our Founding Fathers Was Also the Original Founder of Chase Bank?
Depending how you count, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is arguably the biggest bank in the U.S. The bank’s history now straddles four centuries, with its earliest predecessor institution, the Bank of Manhattan Company, founded in 1799. And the founder of that original company? Aaron Burr, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel five years […]
Ten Terrific Tools for Saving Your Home through Chapter 13–Part 1
Powerful Chapter 13 gives you tools to solve your mortgage problems from a number of different angles. Plus it gives you other tools to deal with tax, support, and judgment liens on your home.
What NOT to do after filing a bankruptcy case
Celebrity bankruptcies can teach you about your own bankruptcy about as much as celebrities’ lives can teach you about your life. Not much. But the bankruptcy of three-time baseball All-Star Lenny Dykstra CAN teach us something in the same way that fairy tales can teach kids about the lessons of life. The life lesson from […]