Latest Legal Insights for Bay Area Residents

Court Allows Mortgage Creditor to Continue Legal Actions A recent 9th Circuit decision provides a noteworthy warning to homeowners considering bankruptcy. While bankruptcy may provide troubled homeowners with relief from losing their homes through foreclosure in certain situations, the bankruptcy courts are not an automatic shield. The court’s ruling in In re Alakozai demonstrates this,…

Chapter 13 bankruptcy has several tools to help persons who are struggling or unable to make payments on their car loans. For many Americans, a house and a car are two of the most valuable possessions they will ever own. A recent article from Bloomberg news reports that lenders today are allowing buyers to borrow…

Consumers who make the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy face many challenges. In some cases, one of those difficulties may be posed by aggressive debt collectors. In one New Jersey case, a collector’s letter, which contained numerous alleged defects in violation of federal debt collection laws, placed it in hot water when the 3d…

Former ‘Gossip Girl’ Star Seeks Chapter 7 Protection Bankruptcy filers seek protection for a wide variety of reasons, and most do so for reasons other than just profligate spending. Such was the case for TV actress Kelly Rutherford, who filed for bankruptcy this summer. The actress was beset by dwindling income following the 2012 conclusion…

Earlier this summer, the 4th Circuit joined an increasing list of federal appeals courts to confirm that debtors need not include Social Security income in their Chapter 13 plan filings. In In re Mort Ranta, the 4th Circuit agreed with the 9th Circuit and others in highlighting that the 2005 bankruptcy reforms passed by Congress…

The recent economic downturn created, among many other problems, an abundance of people with many financed assets on which they were “underwater” or “upside down,” meaning that the outstanding balance on the loan was greater than the current value of the asset itself. One possible way to address assets upon which you are upside down…

In a noteworthy reversal of course from a 2008 decision, the 9th Circuit sitting en banc decided in In re Flores that a debtor couple’s Chapter 13 repayment plan must last at least five years, rejecting the couple’s proposed three-year plan. Even though the couple had no projected disposable income, because the couple had an…

Avoiding the Roadblocks to Rebuilding Your Financial Profile After Bankruptcy For many Americans, bankruptcy has served as an essential fresh start in their financial lives. Completing your bankruptcy procedure is only the beginning, however. Today, rebuilding one’s financial profile after a bankr uptcy is more manageable than in the past. As Roger M. Whelan of…

The extreme effects of the most recent economic recession have many people facing foreclosure on their homes, as the properties’ values plummeted and the property owners’ incomes declined, or dried up altogether. After an extended period of limiting the volume of foreclosure actions, or stopping altogether, mortgage lenders are again pursuing foreclosures more aggressively. Homeowners…

9th Circuit Allows an Employee to Pursue Discrimination Action In a noteworthy departure from the rulings of other federal circuit courts, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave a county employee the green light to sue her employer for discrimination, even though she originally failed to disclose the lawsuit in her Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.…