Once again, a client told me that if she’d known before what she learned in the financial management class required to get her bankruptcy discharge, she probably wouldn’t have needed bankruptcy in the first place. Pretty strong words, from someone who admitted that she approached the required class with low expectations. She announced that she […]

Falling home prices have lead to a surge of strategic defaulters, in real estate columnist Kenneth Harney’s words:  people who abruptly choose to stop making mortgage payments.  These folks have made an economic decision that continuing to pay on a house that is significantly underwater does not make economic sense. Harney is clearly bothered by […]

We were exploring the timing of a bankruptcy case, trying to live free in the house to be foreclosed while avoiding a garnishment on the working spouse’s wages.  I was thinking about comparing the cost of a garnishment to the cost of renting a house:  the client was thinking that a wage garnishment was forever! […]

Mom and pop businesses are beginning to dominate the list of my new clients over the past 30 days.  Retail businesses, construction, internet sales, real estate,  all are reaching the end of their ropes.  Distressingly,  these include a high percentage of long running, well established businesses. Often, the business has been supported on the credit […]

At a hearing on the approval of my attorneys fees in a Chapter 13 case, the judge questioned the fees I attributed to defending a motion for relief from stay which was granted after three hearings.  Wasn’t this a lost cause from the start, she asked? My reply was that I had raised questions of […]

The email said: ” We saw you two months ago about bankruptcy.  The foreclosure is Tuesday.  Can you help?” I wanted to reply:  “Where have you been in the past two months?  What were you thinking to wait til now to start filing bankruptcy?” Instead I said: “Bring information, money and be here in two […]

Logic and reality have been bouncing off my clients’ deflector shields recently on the issue of their houses.  Confronted with the gap between their income and even the payment on a modified loan, I get the refrain, “But keeping the house is the most important thing in my case!” Yes, and how do you expect […]

Can I keep a credit card out of my bankruptcy for future emergencies, clients routinely ask.  The short answer is that you can properly omit from your bankruptcy filing any card issuer with whom you don’t have a balance.  Those issuers are not creditors at this point. The broader question is just how useful is […]