Perhaps I’m feeling particularly crotchety today, but the use of the word “seize” to describe foreclosures seems to me a bit overblown. Headlines like these abound: California Foreclosures Jeopardize Renters as Banks Seize HomesBanks Seize 288K Homes in Q3,Banks seize record number of homes Webster’s dictionary offered this as one definition of seize: To take […]
Student loans: sinking the parents
The numbers on repayment of a student loan for four years at a private university are brutal. No matter how enriching the education, the loan may be the financial death of the graduate. But what sorrows me is the plight of the parents of those same students who have guaranteed or cosigned those loans. Cosignor equally liable […]
Rant on realtors claiming to be a profession
Or maybe this is just a continuing, disappointed sigh that this group, who tries to build a profession around selling houses, is itself oversold. Latest example arose where a homeowner was referred to me by his accountant, concerned about a pending short sale of the client’s home. By our rough calculations, the short sale of […]
Changing view of when to file bankruptcy
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lanning and the application of the infamous “means test” to a client’s changing income picture has changed my advice about when to file bankruptcy. My standard advice to clients newly unemployed who see clearly they won’t be able to pay their existing bills has been to wait. Wait until […]
What happened to encouraging Chapter 13
Used to be, bankruptcy law was organized to encourage debtors to file Chapter 13 and repay some part of their debts. Some part of that encouragement came in the form of the Super Discharge: the ability to discharge debts incurred by bad acts; unfiled tax debt from long past tax years; and unfiled claims in […]
After the loan modification: the underwater house
Two trends in the housing crisis are intersecting in my practice: we’re seeing more loan modifications, all the while we see more and more homeowners with whopping negative equity. The question I’m asking each client eager for a modification is “what do you expect for this property five years from now?” Most loan modifications are […]
Guilt & fear used to keep homeowners paying
Susanne Robicsek’s post on the futility of keeping a home through bankruptcy brought to mind Professor Brent White’s paper on the use by government and financial counselors of fear and shame to keep people paying on mortgages on underwater homes. White cites a litany of messages from apparently credible sources who chant that a foreclosure […]
Bankruptcy lawyer must have otherworldly powers
A colleague’s rant about murky language of notices from the bankruptcy court struck a cord. In an attempt to provide notice, the court sometimes sows confusion. But my pet peeve is the client who calls up and says, literally, “I got this letter from {insert name of court or creditor, or trustee}. What does it […]
Perversity run amok
The clients in financial trouble couldn’t get the attention of their mortgage lender about the coming train wreck. But you’re current, said the telephone representative for the lender. So, the clients deliberately missed a payment to make their point that they needed help. Care to guess what happened next? Determined to remain only one payment […]
Negotiate to the last minute at your peril
The would be client had millions of dollars of equity in the house at stake, yet waited til the week of the foreclosure to look for a bankruptcy lawyer. The required case would be a Chapter 11, which is heavy on procedure. I didn’t have the capacity to take on such a case on an […]
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