Blogs
In a recent opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (the “Court”) ruled that penalties assessed by the state of Michigan against two debtors, stemming from fraud associated with the wrongful receipt of Michigan unemployment benefits, are non-dischargeable in Chapter 13 bankruptcy pursuant to Bankruptcy Code § 523(a)(2).1 Read More ›
Tags: 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Chapter 13
Mulvaney says Trump wants him to stop the CFPB from ‘strangling’ capitalism
He now crushes the voice of the only organization that tries to protect you and me as consumers.
Mulvaney protecting payday lenders and banks.
November, 2017 Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as “acting” director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at the same time he was also the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. June 6, 2018 Mick Mulvaney dealt what may be a death blow to the value of that organization by firing the agency’s 25-member advisory board,a few days after some of its members challenged Mulvaney’s questionable leadership of the watchdog agency. The members include prominent consumer advocates, academics and industry executives who were concerned that Mulvaney was making decisions about the agency’s future that would directly harm consumers (the very reason why the organization was formed).
CFPB has collected $11.7 BILLION in penalties against banks and large business
The agency has realized more than $11.7 billion in “relief,” meaning penalties and other items like forgiven debt balances, passing the benefits on to more than 27 million consumers.
Mulvaney has no intention of putting consumers above financial firms that cheat them.
Mulvaney wants to stop Warren’s influence
“Mick Mulvaney has no intention of putting consumers above financial firms that cheat them. This is what happens when you put someone in charge of an agency they think shouldn’t exist,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who helped conceive of the bureau, said in a statement. Mulvaney trying to eliminate Sen. Warren’s influence on CFPB.
Payday lenders and banks are more important than those being cheated by financial scams.
Payday lenders fought, and lost, a battle to block new federal rules curbing short-term loans that critics say can trap people in cycles of debt, but under Mulvaney that “win” becomes a loss. Mulvaney sides with payday lenders.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said: “Mulvaney has proven once again he would rather cozy up with payday lenders and industry insiders than listen to consumer advocates who want to make sure hard-working Americans are not cheated by financial scams.”
Read more…
The post Mulvaney, Trump’s Lackey, Guts Consumer Protection Bureau appeared first on Diane L. Drain - Phoenix Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Attorney.
Our vets need some relief.
May, 2018 – Over the next few months the Department of Education will be sending letters to totally and permanently disabled veterans that they are eligible to have their student loans forgiven. These loans will be federal student loans or aid from the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education grant program. should receive a letter letting them know that they are eligible to have their student loan debt forgiven over the next few months, federal officials said in a statement earlier this month.
In reviewing their files the Department found that almost half of these loans were in default. Read more…
The post Disabled Vet’s Federal Student Loans To be Forgiven appeared first on Diane L. Drain - Phoenix Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Attorney.
One of the most effective ways to deal with a challenging financial situation may be filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy in California. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can help people from Roseville, CA manage their debt by creating a repayment plan. At the end of the plan, the remaining debts can be wiped out. In addition, Chapter 13 […]
The post Benefits of Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in California appeared first on The Bankruptcy Group, P.C..
When debtors file Chapter 13, all disposable income is paid into the plan and used by the trustee to offset plan expenses. Only regular income, not considered disposable, is the income used to establish and make plan payments and pay reasonable expenses, such as: housing, food, and transportation. Tax refunds are considered disposable income and, typically, must be paid into the plan.
The post How Does Bankruptcy Affect Your Tax Refund? appeared first on Tucson Bankruptcy Attorney.
By Nikita Stewart and Luis Ferré-Sadurni
On a corner of 86th Street and East End Avenue in Manhattan on Sunday, three posters for a missing man were still hanging on a lamp post about a block from the East River.
That was where the police found the man’s parked taxicab, the biggest investment of his life. The man, Yu Mein Chow, had taken out a loan seven years ago to buy a $700,000 medallion that gave him the right to operate a cab.
Mr. Chow, 56, who lived in Queens and went by the nickname “Kenny,” disappeared on May 11. His body was found floating in the East River about nine miles south, near the Brooklyn Bridge, on Wednesday. Friends and family members believe Mr. Chow jumped to his death, adding to a string of apparent suicides of traditional taxi and livery drivers in the city. It marked the fifth suicide in just over five months. The medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death.
New York City’s cab industry, dependent on the market value of the once-coveted taxi medallion, has been upended by the proliferation of Uber and other ride-sharing services. Drivers have been demanding changes at City Hall to protect their livelihood, but at least five cabbies have buckled under the strain of debt since December as others describe working 12- and 14-hour shifts to make up for the lost income. One driver shot himself in February outside City Hall after leaving a message on Facebook blaming the industry’s demise on politicians.
On Sunday, Richard Chow, Mr. Chow’s older brother, went to the street where the police found the taxi as part of a vigil that drew dozens of the driver’s friends and fellow cabbies on a bleak afternoon. He climbed the stone steps of nearby Carl Schurz Park and headed toward the iron fence on an esplanade that overlooks the river. “I loved my brother. He was very hard working. He loved his family,” Mr. Chow managed to say before his voice broke and his eyes teared up. “That’s all I want to say.”
The medallion system was created to limit the number of cabdrivers, but ride-sharing apps have rendered it useless, said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance. Last year, data showed that more people used Uber than yellow cabs in the city. Once sold for more than $1 million, taxi medallions are now selling for as little as $175,000, according to data collected by the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
Ms. Desai said she has been transformed into a part-time counselor to despondent drivers who call her in the wee hours of the morning and a part-time eulogist who talks to family and friends to share the stories of the deceased.
Born in Burma, Yu Mein Chow did not immediately take up taxi driving as a profession when he first moved to the United States as a young man. He became a jeweler, Ms. Desai said.
When the business he worked for closed, she said, “He had to reinvent himself. That’s when he started to drive a taxi cab.”
Mr. Chow bought a medallion in 2011, just as Uber was beginning to operate in New York City. By last year, Mr. Chow was realizing that his $700,000 investment was not paying off. He could not afford his daughter’s college education. He could not afford the medical bills after his wife was diagnosed with cancer, Ms. Desai said.
Ms. Desai said Mr. Chow went to make a payment on his medallion loan a few days before he went missing. His credit card was declined.
On Sunday, mourners bowed their heads three times to honor their friend. Richard Chow grabbed a red flower and a white flower and walked toward the iron fence that divides the city from the choppy waters of the East River. More people followed, and together they threw flowers into the river.
Behind them, new posters they had hung on a pole read: “Rest in Peace. Beloved father, husband, brother, friend, NYC taxi driver.”
Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.
Homeownership dream dies for many under 40 due to student loans.
The American dream for many is to drive a nice car, own a nice home and have a great job. Unfortunately that dream is dead for many under 40. Young people are leaving college with student loan burdens that would choke a horse – $1.4 TRILLION and counting; surpassing credit cards to become the largest source of personal debt outside mortgages. Interest rates for financing a home are increasing, plus loan terms are more restrictive than in the past. According to an article in the New York Times the ability for those in their 20s and 30s to buy a home is dramatically reduced due to the burden of paying their student loans.
Parents face their own financial burdens and cannot help pay for all or part of their children’s student loans. Leaving their children with few options: don’t go to college, but work at a minimum wage job for the rest of their lives; work part-time while going to school (which can double the time to complete school) or borrow loans to finance school.
The cost of higher education has erupted in the last few years. The more financial funding that is made available the more the cost of education rises. Which leads me to wonder about the greed of our higher education systems. Are they in the business to educate our children or make money? Read more...
The post Student Loan Debt Kills Homeownership Dream For Those Under 40 appeared first on Diane L. Drain - Phoenix Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Attorney.
Many callers ask the same question “will I lose my home if I file for bankruptcy?”
Your home is your most valuable asset.
Over the last 30+ years of helping people file for bankruptcy protection the most concern by homeowners is if they will lose their home. My answer – “it depends”. Do you want to keep your home? If so, then make sure to pay the mortgage and homeowners’ dues. If the answer is ‘no’ then stop paying and we will talk about how long you have before the lender can foreclose (see article for more information).
What is you want to keep your home, but are behind in mortgage payments?
Don’t assume you know the answers – ask an experienced attorney.
For consumers there are two types of bankruptcy. The first is a chapter 7. In this bankruptcy you can keep your home, but only if you find a way to bring all your mortgage and HOA payments current (usually within just a few weeks or a couple of months). Some people elect to withdraw from their retirement accounts or borrow money from family or friends.
If you cannot bring your mortgage current in a few weeks then you can try a chapter 13. This allows you to make your new mortgage payment, plus pay extra to bring the missing payments current; usually paid out over a 3 to 5 year period.
WARNING: In Arizona almost half of all chapter 13 cases fail, assuming you work with a very experienced chapter 13 attorney. The failure rate for those not working with very experienced chapter 13 attorney is more than 98 percent.
So can you keep your home if you file for bankruptcy? “It depends”.
The post Will I Lose My Home If I File Bankruptcy? appeared first on Diane L. Drain - Phoenix Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Attorney.
Collection Lawsuit papers are NOT like all the rest of the collection letters that have likely been piling up for months. There are usually real consequences to a lawsuit. If you get served with a lawsuit, it’s understandable if you believe that there is nothing you can or should do about it. But doing nothing is almost never a good idea.
Why not?
- Doing nothing usually has bad consequences: Lawsuits are not cheap for the creditor or collection agency. Often it only pays the costs of filing that lawsuit because it has checked you out and it believes that it will get back what it paid and a whole lot more out of you because of that lawsuit. In fact, the creditor/collector is often directly targeting the way it expects to get paid by you—by garnishing your bank or credit union account or paycheck, by putting a lien on your home, or simply squeezing you to pay whatever way you can.
The majority of lawsuits end up as “default judgments,” judgments in favor of the creditor because the consumer did not respond by the deadline. At the least, that allows the creditor to tack on a bunch of additional fees, making you legally liable for them as well. Often the judgment allows them to start separating you from your precious money, often in ways that most hurt you. A judgment gives the creditor serious advantages. Don’t allow that to happen. Find out the consequences right away after you’ve been served, because you have only a few days to learn and act on your options.
- Doing nothing results in much more than just an admission that you owe the debt: The “complaint” that is the main document of the lawsuit usually states that you owe a debt, have not paid it, and now owe the whole debt, plus related interest, attorney fees and the costs. In most situations, these allegations seem to be true, so you assume you can’t fight back. The point to fighting back is that once the deadline to respond passes and a judgment is entered against you, that closes the door to some important rights:
- a) Your right to raise possible defenses. Collection agencies are often either not careful about whether the debts they are pursuing are legally valid, or purposely pursue invalid or at least highly questionable debts. After all, if consumers seldom object and just allow judgments to be entered by default, you can see why the collectors sometimes don’t worry much about how solid their lawsuit really is. So it’s worth having an attorney review the complaint to see if the statute of limitations on the debt has expired, or if they are even suing the right person, or if you have some other defenses. Once a judgment is entered against you, it becomes either impossible or extremely difficult to raise any such defenses.
- b) Your right to raise counterclaims. A counterclaim is your argument that the creditor did something wrong—usually either in the way the debt was created or in how it was collected—which has damaged you in the eyes of the law, and so the creditor owes you money. If you allow a default judgment against you, that could take away your ability to raise the counterclaim, or at least take away the leverage from that counterclaim just when you need it most.
- c) Your right to dispute facts which go beyond you simply owing the debt. Some debts are more difficult to write off in bankruptcy once a judgment is entered on certain damaging facts. So you should have an attorney review the lawsuit before it becomes a judgment to avoid being at a disadvantage if you ever need to file bankruptcy.
- Doing nothing especially doesn’t make sense when you have an easy and wise alternative: Any lawsuit is a serious matter, one that you need to fully understand. You need legal advice about it, but often it’s hard to know where to turn for it. Unfortunately, most consumers do not have an attorney in the way that most people have a family or primary care doctor. So by the time you get sued the problems have accumulated and probably lots of questions about your debts and finances have gone unanswered.
Schedule a Free Consultation with Your Portland Bankruptcy Attorney
When it comes time to file for bankruptcy, you need a compassionate and skilled attorney who will be able to guide you through the process as cleanly as possible. Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm, we can help you with filing for Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Portland, Oregon. We will be there every step of the way to help navigate you through the often-complex and difficult bankruptcy process.
Give us a call at (503) 912-8809 to schedule a free consultation with one of our bankruptcy attorneys. If you have any other questions about bankruptcy, one of our attorneys will be more than happy to offer advice on your particular situation.
The post A Few Simple Options When You’ve Been Served with a Collection Lawsuit appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
When you file Chapter 13 bankruptcy, this allows you to reorganize your debt and repay your creditors over a three to five year plan. An appointed bankruptcy trustee will oversee the administration of the repayment plan. Below, Reed Allmand discusses the bankruptcy trustee’s duties, as well as what to expect when filing Chapter 13.
What Are the Bankruptcy Trustee’s Duties?
The Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee will perform various duties related to your Chapter 13 filing, including the following:
- Reviewing your bankruptcy paperwork
- Examining your proposed plan for bankruptcy compliant laws
- Collecting your plan’s payments and distributing funds to creditors
- Carrying out the full terms of the Chapter 13 plan
1. Reviewing Your Bankruptcy Repayment Plan
Your repayment plan outlines exactly how you intend to repay your creditors some of or all of your debit. A task of the bankruptcy trustee is to make sure that the Chapter 13 repayment plan is fair to both you and your creditors. Your trustee will start by reviewing all of the official bankruptcy forms filed from the beginning of the case. Your trustee will also cross check the figures provided on the official forms to figures on additional documents sent to the trustee after filing.
Because the petition and schedules include information such as your income, monthly expenses, debts and assets, you will need to produce tax returns, bank statements, past paycheck stubs, and more required by your bank bankruptcy trustee.
2. Conducting the Meeting of Creditors
After a month from filing, your bankruptcy trustee will administer a 341 meeting of creditors, which you must attend. During the meeting, you’ll need to answer questions under oath about your bankruptcy paperwork and plan, and other supporting documents. Expect to receive questions about your income and assets, as well as other relevant information. If more documentation is needed, your bankruptcy trustee will schedule another meeting for a later date. Otherwise, when all the questioning is done, your trustee will conclude the meeting.
3. Overseeing Confirmation Hearings
Should a problem arise with your plan and receive an objection from court approval, you will be offered a short period to correct that issue and draft an opposition in support of your plan. Your trustee will then oversee the confirmation hearing and assess the judge as to whether the plan is feasible and meets all requirements. At the end of the hearing a judge will decide to either approve or reject your plan.
4. Collecting and Administering Repayment Plan
After 30 days from Chapter 13 filing, you must start your monthly payments to your bankruptcy trustee. However, until your repayment plan is approved by the court, your trustee will hold your funds in trust for your creditors. Once the court approves the plan, your Chapter 13 trustee will begin to distribute your funds to your creditors according to the plan’s terms.
Chapter 13 plans take three to five years to complete. During the duration of your plan, your trustee will continue to receive your payments and use them to pay off creditors. While this is happening, your bankruptcy trustee will keep an accurate account of each fund received and each fund sent.
5. Objecting to Improper Claims
Within 70 days of filing, creditors must file a “proof of claim” with the court. This proof of claim states your owed amount and has required documentation attached to it. Your bankruptcy trustee will review these claims and object to any that lack correct documentation, are improperly filed, or are false.
Benefits of Filing for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy
Sometimes called a wage earner’s plan, Chapter 13 bankruptcy will enable you to repay all of or part of your debts over a time based on your regular income. There are a lot of advantages to Chapter 13 bankruptcy, including:
- An opportunity to save your home and assets from foreclosure
- Allows you to reschedule debts and extend them over the life of the plan
- Protects third parties and co-signers who are liable with the debtor towards consumer debts
- Ability to make plan payments to a bankruptcy trustee, avoiding direct contact from creditors
To Learn More, Contact a Bankruptcy Attorney
If you are considering filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, an experienced bankruptcy attorney at Allmand Law Firm, PLLC can answer your questions and guide you through the process. Call 214-884-402 today.
The post What Is the Role of the Bankruptcy Trustee in Chapter 13? appeared first on Allmand Law.
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