Bankruptcy Mastery

Becoming a better bankruptcy lawyer

2010 Tax Return Imperative in Chapter 13

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Got to file the 2010 tax return to get your Chapter 13 plan confirmed is my message to clients filing bankruptcy. But it isn't due til April 15th and I usually get an extension, comes the reply. Not this year. A case filed at any point in 2011 includes tax liability for 2010, since the tax is due as of the close of the tax year.   A Chapter 13 plan has to pay priority claims in full.  How … [Continue reading...]

Find The Avoidable Transfers Before Trustee Does

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Remember "Where's Waldo"?  As a bankruptcy lawyer, can you pick the transfer out of the crowd? Transfer is a defined term in the bankruptcy code.  Both lawyers and clients understand a sale or a gift as a transfer.  But do you recognize the grant of a security interest as a transfer? I conferred in a case  recently where six months before the bankruptcy filing, a business lawyer had drafted … [Continue reading...]

Roadmap To Car Value

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

When the judge's response to a dispute about a vehicle's value is to hold an evidentiary hearing,  you're on stage. Do you feel like the deer in headlights ?  What evidence is available?  Admissible?  How to get it in? The newest judge in San Jose has just written an opinion that can serve as  GPS to get you where you want to be,  along with some commentary on what he would have liked to … [Continue reading...]

The Best MCLE Hour Ever

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

I've been admitted to the bar in California for 33 years and for most of that time we've had a continuing education requirement of some 15 hours a year.  I've handily exceeded that minimum every year.  When I was new and a generalist, there was so much to learn;  when I specialized, I found depths of bankruptcy practice that I had not imagined.  So when one program sticks out against that … [Continue reading...]

Use The Real Tax Due Date For Means Test

By Filed Under: Means test

bankruptcy means test taxes

Californians:  did you know property taxes were due earlier this week? Huh? you say.  Property taxes are due in April and December. Wrong.  Property taxes are due February 1st and November 1st.  They are delinquent if not paid by April 10th and December 10th. Interesting, you say.  But what's the implication for bankruptcy's means test? It means that in cases … [Continue reading...]

Differing Dollars In Chapter 13 Plan vs. Claim

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Who wins when the mortgage arrearages in the Chapter 13 plan are less than the  filed proof of claim? I have to admit that this has puzzled me for years, and the  approaches of the three Chapter 13 trustees I practice before are different and without a an articulated theoretic basis. So I embraced a case recently featured at ConsiderChapter13.org:  Euliano, a bankruptcy decision by Judge … [Continue reading...]

On The Trail of The Involuntary Lien

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

If you just  ask the client for a bill from each creditor, you stand to miss tax and judgment lien creditors who don't send a monthly bill. Schedule D of the bankruptcy schedules should call out each entity with a secured claim on the debtor's assets.  Car lenders and mortgage companies are at the forefront of our clients'  minds and are seldom missed.  But a bankruptcy lawyer often has to dig … [Continue reading...]

Case of the Naked Client

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

The bankruptcy petition  came to my desk for review with no entry for "clothing and wearing apparel".  Funny, I think I'd remember if I'd interviewed any naked people lately. My new assistant has simply transcribed what the client reported on the questionnaire, and when questioned, the client shrugged that his clothing had no value, so he left it blank. There are two overlapping issues here.  … [Continue reading...]

Business Partners: Another Phantom Creditor

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Icon of Saint

After the discharge, the debtor wondered  how her  agreement with a former business partner  to pay the former partner was affected by the bankruptcy, since the partner wasn't listed in the schedules. After wondering how the client hadn't mentioned it and I hadn't flushed it out, I said a prayer to St. Beezley for the protection of fools in bankruptcy. Beezley is the 9th Circuit case that … [Continue reading...]

Case Closed: Too Soon

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Do I have to wait til the bankruptcy discharge is entered to avoid a lien under §522(f)? It might be logical but do so at your peril, I replied.  Actually "peril" is an overstatement, but in this date of electronic dockets, most clerk's offices are closing no asset Chapter 7 cases just as soon as the discharge is entered. I recently  found my judge without jurisdiction to award fees for the … [Continue reading...]

Writer’s Block And The Bankruptcy Schedules

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Comes the plaintive call on the phone:  how do I list this? Faced with a blank schedule  and a house, located in another state,  titled to an estranged  non filing spouse, in which the debtor may have a claim under the marital property laws of California, the rookie bankruptcy lawyer froze. I'm flattered to be asked, but the answer is, it hardly matters.  List it, and you've done the most … [Continue reading...]

What Goes In The Chapter 13 Pot

By Filed Under: Chapter 13

The rookie bankruptcy lawyer called up to ask if the Chapter 13 plan had to provide the DMI amount in addition to the liquidation amount. Whoa!  That's taking good faith to an extreme.  These are two different measures of what unsecured creditors are entitled to under Chapter 13.  Section 1325(a)(4) requires that creditors get at least what they  would have gotten had the case been filed under … [Continue reading...]

Small Business Can Be Big Trouble

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

The newbies in my neighborhood have had a vigorous online  debate about the risks in filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy  for a debtor with a proprietorship business.  One faction simply refused to believe that a bankruptcy trustee could or would shut down an operating business upon filing.  But real estate lawyers deemed it true.  Believe it. In addition to Georgia business attorneys help, I got to ask … [Continue reading...]