Phantom creditors often waft through the lives of debtors. The client may not see them, but as debtor’s lawyers,we must pull those creditors into the light. Phantom creditors may have no claim against the debtor personally, but nonetheless, need to be scheduled. Liabilities of property In rem is nifty sounding Latin, the original language of […]
The 50 State Treasure Hunt
Joint bank accounts present one of the most vexing problems for a bankruptcy lawyer. Too often, your client is a signatory on an account containing someone else’s money. The parties think a joint account is a convenience; often it’s a hedge so that the client can care for a parent or other dependent person should […]
Business Bankruptcy and The Bingo Effect
The lives of business bankruptcy clients are peopled with a less than obvious cast of creditors. You need to flush them out and herd them in line before the case is filed. Near miss I had a close call, or rather my client had a close call, this week when some new information just slipped […]
Watch Out For The Ripple Effects of Bankruptcy
No man, and the rare bankruptcy debtor, is an island. He or she comes with financial connections to family, former spouses, and partners of various sorts. The challenge for bankruptcy counsel is to identify those interconnected others and to advise the debtor of the consequences of the filing on those he cares about. Real estate […]
Think Beyond The Means Test
It started as a means test question: could emergency medical expenses be deemed non consumer debt. It ended up as a step back to get the bigger picture. Well seasoned bankruptcy counsel brought the fact pattern to a list serve of colleagues. The prospective debtors’ income in a small consulting corporation is declining, his health […]
Are You Playing Chapter 7 With A Full Deck Of Cards?
If unscheduled assets are discovered by the trustee, can you dismiss a Chapter 7 case? The question came from the audience of my presentation to bankruptcy lawyers on techniques for the initial interview with the client. It boiled down to: what are the consequences for not doing a skillful job of extracting the whole story […]
Bankruptcy & Divorce: Property Settlements
One change brought by BAPCPA made the choice of chapter in bankruptcy much clearer: the amendment of §523(a)(15). Read with §523(a)(5), now all debts to a spouse, former spouse or a child, incurred in connection with a divorce or separation are non dischargeable in Chapter 7. There’s no longer a balancing-of-the-hardships test for discharge of non […]
