Bankruptcy Mastery

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, homeowners who lost their homes and had debt cancelled as  a result were … [Continue reading...]

Timing is everything. Hitting a round ball with a cylindrical bat is a matter of timing. Bankruptcy practice is no different.  Picking when to file a client's case may be as important as the decision to file or the choice of chapter. As we approach year's end, taxes pop to mind as a reason not to file now, but next year, even January 2nd. Why? Because if your client expects to owe … [Continue reading...]

Bankruptcy cases in our offices have a relatively short life span and our involvement in our client's life ends soon. When the case is over, do you dissect the case and evaluate what went right and not-so-right? Greg Lambert, one of the authors of 3 Geeks and a LawBlog, suggested that firms conduct an After Action Review of a case, as his unit had done in the Army for field … [Continue reading...]

Twenty years in, it's still undecided. We have no uniform rule on what happens to equity in an asset, built up during a Chapter 13 plan, when the case converts to Chapter 7. Amazingly, nearly 20 years after subsection (f) was added to 348, courts are split on how it works.  But another court has just weighed in. Given the propensity for Chapter 13 cases to crater, you need to know where … [Continue reading...]

Once upon a time,  a raft of  consumer bankruptcy lawyers were lost in Googleland. The landscape was littered with pandas and penguins. No one could find the lawyers;  the lawyers  couldn't find clients.... Is that a familiar tale? For some enterprising lawyers, the story will have a happy ending.  They will spend a day with Jay Fleischman and me unpacking the consumer lawyer's … [Continue reading...]