When you have successfully completed your chapter 13 plan, you receive what is referred to as a discharge. When you receive a discharge, it means that all of the debt you included in your chapter 13 filing has been legally paid. After the discharge, creditors who were part of the process are not allowed to [...]

To my readers around the country, please keep in mind that I cannot give you legal advice. My answers here on this blog may help you think of things to talk about with YOUR LAWYER. DO NOT TRY TO BE YOUR OWN LAWYER, based on anything you read here. That would be a really bad idea.   Welcome. [...]The post Welcome to the “Reader Top Rated” Bankruptcy Blog appeared first on Robert Weed.

Getting Sued After Short Sale? Getting sued after a short sale is highly probable.  Saw three couples this month who needed to file bankruptcy, because they were getting sued–garnished in one case–by the second mortgage after a short sale. It was surprising that they were surprised.   At the peak of the crisis, four or [...]The post Getting Sued After a Short Sale? appeared first on Robert Weed.

Not a bad place for a weekend, eh? The NACBA convention was great.  The two buildings on the left housed the convention. But I’m back in the real world, at home, in the realm of real people with real problems. Kudos to Tara Twomey who had a large hand in selecting the content of the weekend.  She seemed to be everywhere, talking about NCBRC or the amicus project, or just taking the pulse of the convention. Roundtables She also ran two of my personal favorite sessions, the roundtable discussions among attendess on mortgage issues and on bankruptcy litigation on a budget. Those of us in the litigation session agreed to create a google group to continue the conversation on how to succeed in litigation without a gob of money. Stay violations Jim Haller headed up my other favorite session on making money on stay violations.  Jim’s trial notebook on prepping a stay violation case for trial is getting incorporated into my forms this week. If I took my own advice, the balance of the week would be open to absorb what I learned and integrate it into my practice.  But this making-a-living business intrudes, and I’m back to solving bankruptcy problems and spiffing up the new Bankruptcy in Brief. Good to see you Thanks to everyone who shook my hand and said they read and enjoyed Bankruptcy Mastery.  You can’t imagine how gratifying your input is.  I write in solitude and just hope someone out there is reading. Several people asked whether I planned anymore stand alone programs on the business of being a bankruptcy lawyer.  Stay tuned, because there’s a weekend program aborning.  More later. Back to work. Image courtesy of Flickr and breilly.  

Chapter 7 is a liquidation fresh start type of bankruptcy whereby a person who has very little in the way of assets and a lot of unsecured debt can file a Chapter 7 and get a fresh start.  Under Chapter 7, debtors typically keep all of their properties such as houses, cars, personal belongings provided+ Read MoreThe post What’s the difference between a Chapter 7 and a Chapter 13 bankruptcy? appeared first on David M. Siegel.

  You’ve filed your chapter 13 bankruptcy paperwork and submitted your schedules and payment plan. The meeting of creditors is completed and you’ve answered the trustee’s questions. The next step in the process is your confirmation hearing. In some courts, the confirmation hearing will happen on the same day as the meeting of creditors. In [...]

Here at Shenwick & Associates, we often get questions from clients if they may transfer a house or an apartment from one spouse to the other after being sued or prior to a bankruptcy filing. In In re Panepinto, Case No. 12-11230K (Bankr. W.D.N.Y., Feb. 25, 2013), an upstate Bankruptcy Court considered this question and held that such a transfer could be a fraudulent conveyance and set aside. In this case, in 2008 a judgment creditor was seeking to collect on a debt owed by Mrs. Panepinto, an insolvent who owned a house with no mortgages or other liens encumbering the property. So, to thwart her judgment creditor, she transferred the house to her husband with no consideration for the transfer. Last year, Mrs. Panepinto filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and her judgment creditor sought to set aside the transfer as a fraudulent conveyance under New York Debtor and Creditor Law §273. The Bankruptcy Court sustained the judgment creditor's challenge to the transfer. The lesson is that before transferring ownership in property, a debtor should seek advice from an experienced bankruptcy attorney, such as Jim Shenwick.

A 341 Meeting is a meeting of creditors we acquired and mandated by the Bankruptcy Code whereby a debtor will be examined under oath by a Chapter 7 trustee regarding assets and liabilities.  The Chapter 7 trustee has the duty to examine the debtor and determine whether or not there are any assets that can+ Read MoreThe post What is a 341 Meeting? appeared first on David M. Siegel.

As soon as you file, your chapter 13 bankruptcy case has officially started. Your case will be assigned to the trustee who serves your county in Arizona. If you filed paperwork to pay your filing fee in installments the court will “enter” the order, meaning the order is signed and filed with the clerk of [...]

The plight of the non-filing spouse who stands to lose an interest in the homestead is a trap that is easy to overlook.   Under 11 U.S.C. Sec. 541(a)(2), when one spouse files bankruptcy, all joint management community property enters the bankruptcy estate.    This means that if the filing spouse elects not to claim the homestead as exempt in favor of selecting other property or is subject to a cap, the non-filing spouse may lose her interest in the property without having any say in the matter.     I have previously written about the Odes Ho Kim case here.   In the Kim case, an involuntary petition was filed against Mr. Kim.    The creditors then sought to impose a cap upon his homestead exemption.  Mrs. Kim intervened asserting that she had an independent interest in the homestead.   The Bankruptcy Court and the District Court ruled that Mr. Kim was subject to a cap on the homestead exemption and that Mrs. Kim had no separate interest in the property.    If both spouses had filed, they would have been entitled to two times the amount of the cap.   However, with Mrs. Kim sitting outside of bankruptcy, her interest in the homestead was completely divested by the bankruptcy filing.Up until this point, the result of the case illustrated an unfair result for the non-filing spouse, but one which was based on an arguable reading of the code.    However, things got interesting after the case was appealed to the Fifth Circuit.    On September 10, 2010, Pronske & Patel and Andrews & Kurth appealed the District Court ruling on behalf of the Kims.    The case was argued to Judges Higginbotham, Owens and Haynes on July 8, 2011.   Now, almost two years have passed since oral argument without a ruling.   According to the Bar Association for the Fifth Circuit, the case is the oldest bankruptcy case still under advisement and is the second oldest case of any kind under advisement.    While speculation about the reason for the long gestation of the opinion is not worth much, I will engage in some anyway.   Both Judges Owens and Haynes sat on Texas state benches before being named to the Fifth Circuit.   (Indeed, Judge Owens was on the Texas Supreme Court).   Texas has a long tradition of protecting homestead rights.   Additionally, according to a recent book on the history of the Texas Supreme Court (Haley,The Texas Supreme Court: A Narrative History 1836-1986, University of Texas Press 2013),  Texas also was also the first state to recognize property rights for married women.    It may be that the judges are struggling with how to reconcile these strong Texas state law protections with the Bankruptcy law applicable here.   It will be interesting to see how the case is finally resolved.