When the person sitting in your office runs a struggling business, I proposed three initial questions to scope out the bankruptcy options available. (The first question.) The second question applies only if the business is operated by an entity ( a corporation or an LLC) How much of the debt it services is the entity really […]
Is Your Debtor Corporate or Corporeal?
Mitt Romney famously insisted that corporations are people. We can disagree about the nature and quantum of rights that gives them relative to human beings, but for the purposes of a business bankruptcy analysis, Mitt was spot-on. A corporation is a legal person separate from the individuals who own the stock in the corporation. When […]
Get A New String To Your Bankruptcy Bow
Success in the business of bankruptcy law lies in not chasing the run of the mill cases. Lots of your competitors want the same simple (or apparently simple) cases. The downside to those cases is that the clients are less sophisticated and the market effectively caps what you can charge. Fewer of your competitors are […]
Mortgage Forgiveness Tax Break Renewed
The tax break protecting homeowners from phantom income when their homes are foreclosed was reauthorized in the last minute fiscal cliff bill. The problem is rooted in the tax code provision that treats debt that is cancelled as if it were income. While debt cancelled in a bankruptcy case is an exception to the rule, […]
Mastery Favorites From 2012
Less than a week to go in 2012. Rather than float a new idea, I looked back at Bankruptcy Mastery for the past year for my favorite posts. I’m finding it’s like asking a mother which of her kids is her favorite. It’s a fundamentally unfair question. Some posts I like because they went together […]
The Best Reason To Reduce Chapter 13 Payments
When life intervenes during the course of a Chapter 13 case, we can modify the debtor’s Chapter 13 plan. As I laid out the provisions of §1329 on modifications for that post, I saw the hand of the late Senator Ted Kennedy in this section. I talked earlier here about his role in providing a […]
When The Chapter 13 Plan Has A Flat
The Chapter 13 completion rate for confirmed plans in San Jose is 65%. Nationally, it’s about 35%. So, how do we do it? Lots has to do with the approach of our trustee, Devin Derham Burk and the on-going liaison between the bench and the bar. But at bottom, it’s a skillful and cooperative bar of bankruptcy […]
