Blogs

When you are watching every penny, you sit at home and make financial calculations in your mind while other people are out engaging in leisure pursuits, or so the influencers on YouTube would have you believe, then you try to spend your free time on income-generating activities, or at least on doing things that do…

If you are bummed out about the fact that everyone in California has been in a foul mood for as long as you can remember, count your blessings. Try driving a few states east to Utah or Texas, where the older generations have managed to impress upon their daughters, even in these turbulent times, that…

In a perfect world, no one would need to use credit cards, but a perfect world is so far away that you have already maxed out one credit card with grocery purchases and other expenses that no one would consider luxuries, and now you are running up the balance on at least one other card.…

How bad your finances are is, at least partially, a matter of perspective. Sure, you don’t have any money left at the end of the month to put into savings. If you are so optimistic that you transfer a percentage of your paycheck into savings every payday, then you end up transferring it back into…

After introductory quotes from texts in Latin, Classical Greek, and Italian, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” begins, “April is the cruellest month.” It is true that April is not especially cuddly, but all of the months are cruel these days. It is as if the financial death toll of the Christmas holidays never ends. Chances…

How In Re Shin Could Influence Which Bankruptcy Taxes are Dischargeable In a recent bankruptcy case (In Re Shin), a court questioned whether the recapture obligation of the first-time homebuyer credit constitutes a “tax” that can be applied to the non-discharge provision of the bankruptcy code. This credit refers to a tax credit established by…

In December 2020, a Delaware bankruptcy court held that the term “financial participant” as used in the safe harbor provisions of Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code does not unequivocally exclude debtors. The Delaware court’s ruling is notable because it marks a split from a 2019 Southern District of New York court ruling. The Issue…

The Supreme Court of the United States recently examined whether a creditor is required to turn over property of a bankruptcy estate to a debtor or trustee under the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay provision if the creditor lawfully possessed the property before bankruptcy was initiated and only passively possessed the property afterward. In this case,…

Both Senator Warren and Congressman Nader recently introduced the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act, which has been received as the biggest alteration of the United States Bankruptcy Code since the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. While the chance of the Act becoming law is low, the Act represents an interesting suggestion of…

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that a mortgage servicer has a permissible reason for pulling consumer reports of three borrowers for whom the company had serviced two mortgages despite the borrowers’ personal liability for the mortgages being discharged in bankruptcy. More particularly, the servicer was granted the right to access the borrowers’…

A new Consolidated Appropriations Act was signed into law at the end of December 2020. Among its thousands of pages, it includes several new bankruptcy provisions for businesses in what is referred to as the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act. Additional bankruptcy relief provisions are located in a miscellaneous section…

On December 1, 2020, several amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure took effect. These amendments had the primary effect of modifying the rules addressing bankruptcy appeals as well as making some other noticeable changes. If you are considering filing for bankruptcy, it is not necessary to learn each of these revisions, but it…

The new Subchapter V of Chapter 11 of legislation known as the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 became effective on February 19, 2020. Shortly after the act was passed, the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact the country. In recognition of the pandemic, the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed on…

The bankruptcy process is available to both consumers as well as businesses that cannot pay their debts and want to find a way to regain control of financial obligations. Consumer bankruptcy often takes one of two forms. Chapter 7 bankruptcy involves the liquidation of a person’s non-exempt assets into funds that are used to pay…

People who file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy must meet certain income qualifications. In most  cases, debtors who fail to meet income requirements do not qualify for Chapter 7. People with higher income levels often must pursue a repayment plan under Chapter 13 to take control of debt. People who are currently unemployed or who have…