Keep Your Vehicle In Spite of Paying Less Every Month
What if you really need to hang on to your car or truck, but can’t afford the monthly payments? Or if you’ve fallen behind and just can’t catch up? “Straight bankruptcy”—Chapter 7—won’t help you here. Most of the time, you have to either quickly catch up or you lose the vehicle. And very few vehicle […]
What Happens to Your “General Unsecured Debts” in Chapter 13?
In most Chapter 7 “straight bankruptcies,” most debts are legally written off, especially debts that are not secured by any collateral and don’t belong to any of the special “priority” categories of debt. But how about in a Chapter 13 payment plan? What determines whether these creditors get paid, and if so how much?
The Great Recession More Than Wipes Out a Quarter-Century of Gains Made by Blacks and Hispanics in Household Wealth
I had no idea that the recession had such a much worse impact on minorities. The gap in median household wealth between whites and each of the two largest minority groups has not only gotten tremendously wide, in fact this gap almost doubled in only four years. This is according to a report released by […]
What Happens to Your “General Unsecured Debts” in Chapter 7?
Your “left-over debts”–those which are neither secured by collateral nor belong to any of the special “priority” categories–often don’t drive the decision about whether to file Chapter 7 or 13. But you still need to know how these “general unsecured debts” are handled under these two options.
The Most Basic Concept in Bankruptcy: Debts
The most practical questions you likely have if you are considering bankruptcy is what it will do to each of your debts.
The U. S. Trustee–The Behind-the-Scenes Bankruptcy Administrator and Hope-You-Never-Meet Enforcer
I know who my bankruptcy trustee is, but now who is the ”U. S. Trustee”? You’re about to file a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 case. You know in a Chapter 7 that your bankruptcy trustee is the person who looks over your paperwork and talks with you for a few minutes, mostly to decide […]
The Chapter 13 Trustee–A Trustee of Many Hats
Your Chapter 13 trustee plays a huge role in the success or failure of your Chapter 13 case. Except he or she actually has at least a half-dozen different roles. Some of which are contradictory. Let me explain. 1) The trustee serves as the gatekeeper of your case, forcing us to play by the rules […]
A Big Benefit to Owing Lots of Business Debt: Skip the “Means Test” and Qualify for Chapter 7
If you owe more business debt than consumer debt, then you can avoid not only the “means test” but also some other roadblocks to a successful post-business Chapter 7 bankruptcy case.
Getting a Handle on Your Income and Business Taxes Through Bankruptcy While Your Business Forges Ahead
Could your small business survive and even thrive if you could just get better terms for payment of your back tax debts?
A Happy Chapter 7 Trustee Means a Happy Chapter 7 Case
My goal with our Chapter 7 clients is to provide a smooth path through bankruptcy to a fresh and clean start. The way to get there is to do what it takes to keep your Chapter 7 trustee happy. We keep the trustee happy by making it easy for him or her to do his […]