"You can never plan the future by the past." -Edmund Burke It has been said that life is all about timing. This is especially true when examining someone's financial status. Someone could be solvent today and insolvent tomorrow (or vice ver…
Although anecdotal, many Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service attorneys who practice bankruptcy would most likely state that one of their largest complaints with the previous version of the Bankruptcy Code was their inability …
The doctrine of tenants by the entireties contemplates the ownership of property by the marital union itself ("one flesh") and not by the separate spouses as co-tenants. As a result, the Bankruptcy Code preserves the debtor's right, when on…
Editor's Note: See Related Article on p. 10. (Legislative Update) Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) significantly changes chapter 11 cases of individuals. After reviewing how chapter 11 works in an individual'…
Under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, 1 there was a split of authority as to the disposition of funds paid to the chapter 13 trustee after commencement of a case where the case was converted to a chapter 7 case before confirmation of a p…
Editor's Note: Part I was published in the May 2006 issue and Part II was published in the June 2006 issue of the ABI Journal. With an understanding of how post-confirmation fees and charges can arise and why no attempt to collect those fee…
Individual Chapter 11 Cases after BAPCPA: Can You Still Close the Case Early? Practitioners, judges and scholars have debated the ins and outs of BAPCPA in countless seminars and scholarly efforts. One area that courts will inevitably addre…
In In re Jones, 327 B.R. 297 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. 2005), Bankruptcy Judge Jeff Bohm addressed a motion by the chapter 7 trustee to deny the debtor's discharge based on a failure to keep and preserve financial records. The chapter 7 trustee had…
Discharge of Unfiled Taxes under BAPCPA: No More "Super" Discharge? The basic concept of a chapter 13 bankruptcy filing historically was to allow individual debtors to reorganize their finances. The policy of giving the debtor a chance to h…
Congress decided that student loans are beneficial, and that the federal taxpayers' money should be used to guarantee their repayment. Congress even set up various programs over the years to allow students to obtain loans directly from the …