Cases keep getting referred to my office when the clients are over the debt limits for Chapter 13. (Debt limits are less of a barrier since the debt limit moved to $2.75 M in 2022). The assumption seems to be that if the debt is that large, a Chapter 11 is required. It ain’t necessarily […]
Best Bankruptcy CLE For Under A Buck
What bankruptcy can and cannot do for borrowers in distress is the subtitle of a free, three hour, on demand presentation by PLI. I was part of the panel that surveyed the field for new lawyers and those new to the intersection of real property and bankruptcy. Live, it was fun since all the audience […]
Bankruptcy’s Three Little Words
Like waltz tempo, there’s an appeal in threes: Larry, Moe, and Curly Faith, hope, and charity Tinkers, Evers, and Chance In bankruptcy, the trio is unliquidated, contingent, and disputed. They’re the prescribed adjectives for describing claims on the schedules. We all love adjectives, don’t we? Contingent The definition of contingent, in our context, focuses […]
Get To The Heart Of This Lien Business
When I trip over the same issue three times in a week, it’s time to discuss it here. In my office, it came up when I spotted a creditor on Schedule D with a lien on a pleasure boat. Only problem was that no boat was listed on Schedule B; it belonged to the debtor’s […]
No Hits, No Runs, But Lots Of Errors
Their unconfirmed Chapter 13 case was dismissed and the unrepresented debtors sitting before the judge didn’t understand. “Why did our payments keep going up?” they asked. “We can’t pay that much”. The judge noted that their current plan called for a pot of $73,000 over the life of the plan. The trustee had the answer: […]
Win at Confirmation, Lose the House
The finality of plan confirmation was a two edged sword for the debtor’s lawyer defending a relief from stay motion. You win, for now, the judge told him. But the train wreck is coming. The lender’s lawyer complained, unsuccessfully it turned out, that the mortgage payment had increased from the payment at confirmation. The plan […]
Name Your Tune
OK, it’s summer. Our minds wander. We wish we were at the beach. So, fritter away some more time. How about picking out your firm’s theme song? If My Practice Had a Theme Song Clients, inattentive and ungrateful, have plagued my practice lately. Purely for internal consumption, our staff theme song would be the Gilbert […]
