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Step 1
There are numerous Steps During a Bankruptcy. You usually start the bankruptcy process by meeting with a lawyer for an interview. Most lawyers offer a free consultation. The interview should not really be any less than one-half hour. The lawyer will usually provide you with some forms to fill out. If you are comfortable with that lawyer, you usually pay a fee deposit at that first meeting. The fee deposit can differ, depending on the type of case you are filing and the lawyer’s estimation of complexity, but recognize that most bankruptcy cases really are not horribly complex, so you should not usually have to pay a huge fee up front to retain the lawyer.
Most lawyers want your business, so the lawyer should not have any problem with you going home to think it over before putting down any deposit. If you get lots of pressure to pay immediately, perhaps you should be wary of that lawyer. At the first meeting, the lawyer is required by law to provide you with certain written disclosures if he offers to take your case. A lawyer who does not provide the written disclosures for you to take home should be avoided because that means the lawyer either does not know what he is doing, or perhaps even worse, does not respect the Federal law that strictly governs his relationship with you.
Step 2
In addition to the mandatory disclosures, the lawyer should send you home to gather information, providing you with a list. In Oregon State, a modest amount of information needs to be presented to the lawyer’s staff so that the requisite paperwork can be prepared for you to sign.
Step 3
You must complete an online mandatory pre-bankruptcy credit counseling at home. This is an easy to complete tutorial that takes about one hour and fifteen minutes to finish. It is done over the internet or over the telephone. You are not required to take the Oregon credit counseling if you are on active military duty in a combat zone or you are physically or mental impaired to such an extent that you cannot fulfill the credit counseling requirement. Once you complete the course you will receive a certificate that you must file along with your bankruptcy petition.
Step 4
After your gather the information, you call the attorney’s staff to arrange a date and time to drop of the information that is required to prepare your paperwork. When all the information is dropped off, then the lawyer’s staff works on setting a document signing date and time for you to meet with the attorney once again.
Step 5
At the signing appointment, you come to the office and review the paperwork prior to signing it. You then meet with the attorney to make any corrections or iron out any questions or problems. A signing appointment can last anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours, depending on the complexity of the case.
Step 6
Within a few days, the lawyer’s staff files the case electronically to the Court.
Step 7
About six or seven weeks after the case is filed electronically to the Federal Bankruptcy Court, you then attend Court with the attorney at what is called the 341 Meeting of Creditors. You and your lawyer meet with the Judge’s designee or assistant (called a Trustee). The Trustee and your attorney sit with you around a table and the Trustee asks you some questions to ensure that you are being honest in your documents and that you have not left out any required information. There are usually eight to 12 cases scheduled every hour at Bankruptcy Court for the 341 Meeting of Creditors, so it is rare that you would be questioned for more than four or five minutes.
Step 8
About two months after your 341 Meeting of Creditors, your case is discharged in Chapter 7. In Chapter 7, your case is usually “closed” and thus finalized about two to six weeks after the issuance of discharge.
However, if you are in a Chapter 13 case which does repay some funds to some creditors, your proposed plan of Chapter 13 reorganization drafted by your attorney is usually approved by the Court about two to three months after your 341 Meeting of Creditors because there is such a local backlog of Chapter 13 cases. In Chapter 13, you start your monthly “plan payment” to the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustee about 30 days after the filing of the case, and you make payments for 36 or 60 months. How long you must pay in a Chapter 13 plan (36 months vs. 60 months) and how much debt you must repay in Chapter 13 (1.0% vs. 99.9%) are complex topics best discussed with your attorney or his or her staff, because the two items (length of plan and debt repayment) are very complex calculations based upon how much you have been earning in the six months leading up to your bankruptcy filing.
Schedule a Free Consultation with Your Tacoma 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 Oregon State. 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 (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 General Steps During a Bankruptcy Process in Tacoma appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
Through Tacoma bankruptcy, you may be able to and want to pay a co-signed debt. If not, you need protection from that debt and from your co-signer. A friend or relative may have helped you earlier by co-signing a debt for you. But now you find yourself needing relief from all or most of your debts through either a Chapter 7 “straight bankruptcy” or a Chapter 13 “adjustment of debts.”
What happens to your co-signed debt? And what happens to whatever responsibility you may feel towards your co-signer? What if you simply can’t afford to pay the co-signed debt now or at any time soon? You may no longer want to pay your co-signer because your relationship has soured. Your co-signer may be the one who received the benefit of the debt and should pay it back. Or you may still want to pay it eventually but have no idea when. In all these situations you need legal protection against your co-signer.
Your Legal Obligations to the Co-Signer
You need legal protection from your co-signer when you file a bankruptcy case because you either have a clear legal obligation to him or her, or at least a significant risk of such an obligation. Either way you should take care of it within your bankruptcy case.
You have a clear legal obligation to your co-signer if the two of you formalized the terms of that obligation, perhaps in writing but orally may be enough. The basic terms would include who was supposed to pay the debt and what would happen if that person did not pay it.
For example, you and your co-signer may have explicitly agreed that you would be responsible for making all the payments on the debt, and that if you did not make any payment on time so that your co-signer had to pay it, then you would owe him or her however much he or she paid.
Unclear Obligations
Practically speaking often when two people jointly share a debt, the obligations between them are often not clearly agreed upon and are seldom put into writing. But even then, legal obligations could arise between them based on their common understanding.
For example, assume you needed a co-signer on a loan for your business, and your sister agreed to co-sign it. You and your business received all the benefits of the loan. Then when later you didn’t pay the loan and your sister had to pay it off, she would likely have legal grounds to come after you for the amount she paid.
Including Your Co-Signer in Your Bankruptcy
Either way, whether your obligation to your co-signer is legally clear or not, if you are filing bankruptcy and not paying the co-signed debt you need to discharge whatever obligation you do have to that other person. You do this by listing your co-signer as a creditor in your bankruptcy schedules.
To emphasize, you should do this even if you think you don’t really have legal liability. For example, you may remember the co-signer telling you that if you can’t make the payments he or she would do so and wouldn’t come after you for those payments. Well, he or she may remember it differently. It’s better to err on the side of caution and cover whatever legal liability there may be.
Protection against Your Co-Signer
Once you file bankruptcy, your co-signer—just like all the rest of your creditors—is legally prevented from contacting you to collect the debt. He or she can’t try to make you pay the underlying co-signed debt (which you’ve also included as a debt in your bankruptcy documents). The co-signer also can’t pressure you to pay him or her directly.
If your co-signer tries to do either of these, he or she would be violating the “automatic stay,” the law that prevents creditors from trying to collect during a bankruptcy case. And if you were pursued by your co-signer after the bankruptcy is completed and your obligations legally discharged, he or she would be in violation of the injunction against attempting to collect on a discharged debt. These are both serious violations of federal law.
Paying Your Co-Signer without Legal Obligation
Including your co-signer as a creditor in your bankruptcy documents takes away your legal obligation. It is up to you whether you continue to have a moral or any other kind of obligation to the co-signer. The benefit to you is that if you do decide to pay your co-signer or the co-signed debt, it will be done without legal pressure. You will instead be able to pay whenever and to whatever degree your sense of moral or personal obligation tells you to.
Schedule a Free Consultation with Your Tacoma 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 Washington State. 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 (253) 780-8008 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 situation.
The post Bankruptcy and Your Co-Signer. What Happens Next? appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
Discharge Your Other Debts So You Can Pay Your Taxes
Ask yourself this one crucial question: if you filed a Chapter 7 case and discharged all or most of your non-tax debts, would that leave you with enough monthly cash flow to enable you to reliably make large enough monthly payments to the IRS/state on whatever tax debt(s) the Chapter 7 would not discharge, so that those taxes would be paid off safely and a reasonable time? Filing for Chapter 7 can help you with your Income Tax Debt.
“Safely” refers to the reality that you would be dealing directly with the tax authorities after the Chapter 7 case. And you (and maybe your lawyer) would be doing so without bankruptcy protection once your Chapter 7 was completed.
That’s not a problem if you arrange to pay a monthly tax installment payment that you can confidently afford. The expectation is that you will be able to once you discharge of your other debts through your Chapter 7 case, but you also must be able to maintain those tax payments until the tax is paid off.
A Chapter 7 is a good idea if you don’t need a Chapter 13’s continuous protection from creditors throughout the payment process. That protection is especially valuable if your circumstances change in the future. The Chapter 13 procedures are likely more flexible than that of the IRS or the state.
“Reasonable time” refers to the reality of ongoing interest and penalties assessed by the IRS and state agencies. These will almost always continue to accrue throughout the time you are making installment payments. The taxing authorities are sometimes relatively flexible about stretching out the payments (and sometimes they’re not). But you need to look at how much the ongoing interest and penalties will add to the amount you must pay before you’re done.
How to Know Whether You Will Be Able to Pay Non-Discharged Tax Debt
How can you tell in advance that you will be able to afford to pay taxes that you can’t discharge? How can you tell if you’ll be able to do so safely and within a reasonable time?
First, it means calculating how much a Chapter 7 case would help your monthly cash flow and your longer term financial stability by discharging your other debts.
Second, you need to know what the IRS and/or state tax authority will likely accept as monthly payments, given the amount of your remaining tax debt. From there the estimated additional interest and penalties can be roughly calculated.
Your bankruptcy lawyer will help you with these projections and calculations. Then he or she will counsel you with the decision about whether you are a good candidate for cleaning your slate with Chapter 7 and then paying your remaining tax debt directly.
Discharge Your Other Debts So You Can Settle Your Taxes
A similar analysis comes into play for using Chapter 7 to position yourself to settle your taxes instead of just paying them through monthly installments. The IRS may allow a taxpayer to settle a tax debt through an Offer in Compromise, and most state agencies have similar procedures.
This choice—between filing a Chapter 7 case and then attempting to settle the remaining taxes vs. just filing a Chapter 13 case to handle the taxes—is likely more difficult to make than the installment payment choice above. That’s because tax settlements 1) take much longer to approve, and 2) are less predictable. The tax authorities tend to have relatively clear monthly payment parameters, but tend to use more discretion with settlement.
Some bankruptcy lawyers regularly handle Offers in Compromise and state tax settlements, others do not. If not, your lawyer will be able to refer you to a lawyer or accountant who does.
Regardless, the same basic analysis applies here as with installment payments. Find out how much a Chapter 7 bankruptcy would help clear away your other debt. Determine how that would position you to make a settlement offer for the remaining taxes. Then assuming some sort of settlement would likely be approved, would it be feasible and reasonable compared to what would happen in a Chapter 13 case?
To oversimplify, file a Chapter 7 case instead of a Chapter 13 if the taxes you’re left with can very likely be handled with a safe and reasonable installment payment plan, or with a settlement. Otherwise file a Chapter 13 case for more protection and flexibility.
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 Can Filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Help with Income Tax Debt? appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
An Automatic Stay is when you file a bankruptcy case creating one of the most powerful tools in bankruptcy—the “automatic stay.” This protective order automatically goes into effect the instant Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm files your case at the bankruptcy court and “stays”—which means stops—all collection activity against you and anything you own.
What Creditors Can’t Do
The Bankruptcy Code includes a list of what creditors cannot do because of the “automatic stay.” Focusing on those applicable to the IRS/state, creditors can’t:
start or continue a lawsuit or administrative proceeding to recover your debt
take possession or exercise control over your property
create or enforce a lien against your property
collect any debt that exists as of the time your bankruptcy is filed
How long does the automatic stay protect me from creditors?
The automatic stay is in effect until your bankruptcy closes. It covers more debt collection than the discharge. Student loans, some back taxes, fines and domestic support obligations are not covered by the discharge. The automatic stay covers student loans and back taxes. Child support actions are not covered by the automatic stay. Fines are not covered either. The IRS can continue a tax audit without violating the stay, but cannot try to collect from you.
A creditor can ask the court to “modify the automatic stay”. If they persuade the court they have a good reason to continue debt collection, the stay is modified only for that one creditor. Usually that means a car company or mortgage company can continue foreclosure or repossession if you are not keeping up on the payments. They can modify the stay in as little as a month.
As Applied to the IRS/State
Income taxes are not treated like most debts as to their discharge (legal write-off) in bankruptcy. Taxes are not discharged unless they meet a series of conditions. But the IRS and state tax agencies ARE in most respects treated the same as other creditors when it comes to the “automatic stay.”
The Bankruptcy Code says that the “automatic stay” “operates as a stay, applicable to all entities.” (Section 362(a) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.) So are the IRS and state tax agencies “entities”? The Code defines an “entity” to include a “governmental unit.” (See Section 101(15).) So the IRS and all tax-collecting “governmental units” are indeed governed by the “automatic stay.”
If the IRS/State Tries to Collect Anyway
Just like any other creditors, the IRS and state tax agencies act illegally if they violate the “automatic stay” by continuing to collect on a debt or taking any other of the forbidden actions.
If you are “injured by any willful violation of [the automatic] stay… [you] shall recover actual damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, and, in appropriate circumstances, may recover punitive damages” against the IRS/state. (See Section 362(k).) The truth is that the IRS and various state tax agencies have violated the “automatic stay” on occasion. And they’ve had to literally pay the consequences. They now tend to follow the law and respect the “automatic stay” appropriately.
Special Exceptions to the “Automatic Stay” for “Governmental Units”
The IRS and state tax agencies do have some specialized exceptions—things they can continue doing in spite of your bankruptcy filing. (See Section 362(b)(9).) But these are generally sensible exceptions, applying more to the determination of a tax amount than to its collection.
The tax agencies can:
demand that you file your tax returns
make an assessment of the tax and tell you how much you owe
do an audit to figure out the amount you owe
They cannot take any actions to force you pay the tax.
Schedule a Free Consultation with Your Tacoma 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 Washington State. 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 (253) 780-8008 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 What is an Automatic Stay and How It Can Benefit You appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy tools gives you options to help you manage your home mortgage. Chapter 13 involves a flexible payment plan that’s especially helpful with debts you can’t write off, or “discharge.” It can be much better if you own income taxes, child or spousal support, or student loans, for example. Chapter 13 can also be incredibly helpful with debts you don’t WANT to discharge, like your home mortgage. Chapter 13 protects you for three to five years while to deal with debts you can’t or don’t want to discharge. You then get a discharge of the debts that you didn’t pay, catch up on and/or partially pay. Especially if you have fallen behind on your mortgage and are at risk of losing your home to foreclosure, Chapter 13 is often the better option.
Saving Your Home from Foreclosure
Chapter 13 stops a foreclosure if you have one pending. And it often stops one from starting if you are on the brink of that happening. You then have 3 to 5 years to catch up on your missed mortgage payments. Having such a long time to catch up makes it easier and more likely that you can and do end up catching up and saving your home.
Usually you catch up by chipping away at the arrearage month-by-month, but not necessarily. Chapter 13 can be very flexible. You may be allowed to catch up in other ways. For example, your payment plan may allow you to sell or refinance your home a few years after filing the case. This can give you some valuable flexibility, such as enabling you to put off catch-up payments until then. This can also give you time to build up more equity for the sale/refinancing. It may allow you to stay in your home for a crucial length of time. For example, it can be a great way to be able to stay within a local school district another couple years until a child graduates from high school.
A second or third mortgage “strip” is a potential benefit only available under Chapter 13. If your home is worth no more than your first mortgage, the second mortgage can be removed from your home’s title. If so, you immediately stop paying on that junior mortgage, significantly and permanently reducing the monthly cost of keeping your home Stripping off the junior mortgage also gets you closer to building equity. (To do a third mortgage “strip,” the home can’t be worth more than the amount of the first and second mortgage balances combined.)
If you’ve fallen behind on your property taxes, Chapter 13 also gives you more time to catch up on it. As with your mortgage lender, during your catch-up period, your home is protected from the taxing authority’s foreclosure. You are also protected from your mortgage lender itself foreclosing for the reason that you not having paid those taxes.
Bankruptcy allows you to remove most judgment liens from your home title permanently. You may pay a part of the underlying debt (that resulted in the judgment) through your Chapter 13 plan, but most of the time that individual debt does not increase the amount you are required to pay. And sometimes these debts receive nothing at all. Then at the end of your case whatever amount is still unpaid is all discharged. Judgment lien removal is also available in a Chapter 7 case, but can be especially valuable in Chapter 13 in combination with the other tools.
Chapter 13 also deals relatively well with a lien on your home on debt that bankruptcy does not discharge. So if you have a lien based on child/spousal support arrearage or relatively recent income taxes, you pay off that debt through your Chapter 13 plan, while being protected from collection efforts of these creditors. And then at the end of your case, with the debt paid, the lien is released from your home’s title.
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 Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Tools for Your Home Mortgage appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.
New Yorkers who can afford to avoid their dysfunctional subway system are spoiled for choice these days. In addition to long-established taxis, livery cabs, black cars and limousines, they can summon rides through Uber, Lyft, Via, Juno and other app-based ride-hailing and ride-sharing services. While this new surfeit of options has been a boon to people trying to get around town, it has also helped lay waste to the livelihoods of taxi drivers and turn New York’s already busy streets into glorified parking lots — and leaders like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Albany and the City Council have yet to come up with an effective strategy to deal with these problems.
Cities have a long history of intervening to impose order on their streets. No large metropolis can accommodate everyone who would like to drive or be privately driven around — street space is a limited resource, especially in the densest neighborhoods and at the busiest times of the day. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, New York created its taxi medallion system because drivers looking for work flooded the streets, far outstripping demand and driving down wages for drivers.
With the rise of Uber, Lyft and the like, the city is again confronting a tragedy of the commons.Many other thriving cities, including London and Paris, are also struggling to figure out how to respond to these new business models. A big part of the problem is that elected officials have not updated regulations written for a bygone era in which each type of car service tended to stay in its lane, so to speak — in New York, taxis primarily plied the streets of Manhattan and the city’s airports, liveries took care of residents of the other boroughs, and black cars chauffeured the denizens of Wall Street. While the city has issued just 13,587 taxi medallions — a small fraction of the more than 60,000 cars Uber commands — it gave freer rein to the liveries and black cars under the assumption that these specialized services would never become dominant.
Ride-hailing apps have shattered those boundaries by signing up drivers with livery or black-car licenses. These companies cast themselves as filling big gaps in the transportation system, and it’s true that they have been great for people in mass-transit-starved parts of the city. But their growth has also led to many veteran taxi and black-car drivers seeing a devastating decrease in take-home pay.
That’s largely because they are completing fewer trips than before. As a result, the value of the taxi medallions that drivers must either buy from the city or rent from taxi companies has crashed in recent years, going from a high of about $1.3 million in 2014 to less than $200,000 today. Over the past five months, four drivers who were financially strained have killed themselves, and many others have lost their medallions to foreclosure.
At the same time, traffic has slowed to a crawl, to just 8.2 miles per hour south of 60th Street in Manhattan in 2015, down from 9.4 miles per hour in 2010, according to the city’s Department of Transportation.
It makes little sense for the city to regulate the old and new guard of for-hire cars differently when many New Yorkers use them interchangeably — as do some drivers, who have been known to switch between traditional cabs and app-based services. While it would be impractical for the city to get rid of its existing regulations in one fell swoop, it could phase in new regulations. A more thoughtful regime would ensure that all drivers make a living wage by establishing a minimum fare for riders, and a standardized share of that fare for drivers, regardless of what kind of car they drive. Or as Brad Lander, a City Council member from Brooklyn, has proposed, the city could require companies like Uber to pay drivers a minimum wage. Further, the city ought to standardize regulations like those requiring that a certain number of cars be accessible to people with disabilities.
The city and state also need to create a smart congestion pricing plan to reduce traffic while raising money for upgrades to the subway and bus system, which would encourage fewer people to get into cabs and Ubers. The Legislature recently added a surcharge on taxi trips below 96th Street in Manhattan: 75 cents for pooled trips, $2.50 for yellow taxis and $2.75 for black cars and Uber and Lyft rides. This charge is flawed. It does not vary by the time of day, and lawmakers failed to impose fees on private cars and trucks. A smart pricing scheme would discourage use of all vehicles when traffic is at its worst and encourage car travel and deliveries at off-peak times.
Over time, the city should consider whether it owes something to drivers who sunk their savings into taxi medallions. Many drivers went into debt to buy these permits because the city promised them a monopoly on picking up passengers, a promise it has not been able to keep. No doubt any compensation plan would be controversial, and working out the details would be tricky — the city, for example, should not compensate investors, like Michael Cohen, President Trump’s lawyer-cum-fixer, who should have known that they were taking big risks by buying up dozens of medallions. Governments in Quebec and Australia have compensated or are proposing compensating taxi drivers for the lost value of such licenses.
The city needs to make its transportation system fairer to paid drivers, responsive to the needs of commuters and more environmentally sustainable. If the mayor and other elected officials put their minds to that task, they might also help set a model that cities around the world could follow.
© 2018 The New York Times Company
The April 2018 New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) sales results have been released to the public. And as is our practice, provided below are James Shenwick’s comments about those sales results.
1. The volume of sales continues to decline. In April, there were only 23 taxi medallion sales (excluding stock transfers).
2. 12 of the 23 sales (over half) were foreclosure sales, which means that the medallion owner defaulted on the bank loan and the banks were foreclosing to obtain possession of the medallion. We disregard these transfers in our analysis of the data, because we believe that they are outliers and not indicative of the true value of the medallion, which is a sale between a buyer and a seller under no pressure to sell (fair market value). Three additional transfers were family transactions for minimal or no consideration, which we have also excluded from our analysis.
3. The eight regular sales ranged from a low of $170,000 (one medallion), to three medallions at $175,000, to two medallions at $180,000, and two medallions at $185,000.
4. The low sales volume seems to indicate that at this stage of the market, not many parties are involved in selling or buying medallions, possibly due to the fear that medallion prices may further decrease.
5. The median of March’s sales was $177,500, a $2,500 (1.4 %) decrease from March’s median sales of $180,000.
Please continue to read our blog to see what happens to medallion pricing in the future. Any individuals or businesses with questions about taxi medallion valuations or workouts should contact Jim Shenwick at (212) 541-6224 or via email at j[email protected].
There are times during a bankruptcy proceeding where a creditor will decide to challenge the automatic stay. The purpose of challenging the automatic stay is to allow the creditor to move forward with any legal action against you for the debt that you owe them. A preliminary hearing on the request to lift the stay is held within 30 days, followed by a final hearing within 30 days after the preliminary hearing.
The post Challenges to the Automatic Stay appeared first on Tucson Bankruptcy Attorney.
After bankruptcy, get a credit card. Get a couple. Getting back to good credit is one of the five ways bankruptcy gives you a new start. The bankruptcy itself helps quite a bit, because the old debts stop chasing you. But to really improve your credit score you have to get and use two or […]
The post After Bankruptcy, get a credit card by Robert Weed appeared first on Robert Weed.
Does Bankruptcy Write Off Criminal Fines or Restitution? Bankruptcy does not write off criminal fines or restitution. The “automatic stay,” which stops almost all other collection actions, does not stop any criminal court proceedings.
There is a big division in the law is between criminal and civil matters. Criminal law is just one relatively small side of the law. The civil side includes everything else. It includes the law of contracts for buying consumer goods and for creating debts, the law of marriage and divorce, rules about labor and employment, the rights and obligations related to vehicle accidents and all other personal injuries and property damage, as just a few examples.
Criminal charges against you sometimes spill over into the civil side. You may find yourself dealing with fallout from your alleged criminal actions that go beyond the criminal court. This is where bankruptcy may be able to give you some serious help.
Specifically, once a criminal case is resolved you could face a lawsuit by the alleged victim in civil court. This can happen even if you succeed in having the criminal charges dropped.
The Example
Let’s say you had a fight with your now-ex-spouse not long before your divorce. Unfortunately, it got physical. A few days later a mysterious fire destroyed your ex-spouse’s vehicle and garage and damaged her house. You know nothing about the fire and believe your ex-spouse is trying to frame you. Criminal charges are brought against you for assault and battery, and arson. You go through an exhausting criminal trial, with the help of a good criminal defense lawyer. You are found not guilty of any of the criminal charges, because you in fact had nothing to do with the fire, and the jury found you to be much more credible than your ex-spouse.
But that’s not good enough for your all-the-more enraged ex-spouse. He or she sues you for civil assault and battery from the fight, for severe emotional distress from the fire, and for $200,000 property damage for the vehicle and to the real estate. You are at risk of owing a tremendous amount of money.
Your lawyer tells you that winning in criminal court does not at all mean you will win in civil court. There is a lower standard of proof on the civil side. Proving your fault by “a preponderance of the evidence” is much easier than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Basically, whichever side has a more convincing story wins. Your criminal jury found reasonable doubt on all the charges. But your lawyer advises you that there is still a serious chance you could lose in civil court.
Besides that, paying for your criminal defense has more than tapped you out. In fact you’re in serious debt trouble overall, from the combination of the divorce and the criminal battle. So you are thinking about filing bankruptcy because of all the financial pressures. You wonder if it can help with this lawsuit by your ex-spouse as well.
The Major Ways Bankruptcy Can Help
- Automatic stay
If you filed a bankruptcy case, that would at least stop the civil court litigation temporarily. Your ex-spouse would have to get permission from the bankruptcy judge to continue with the civil lawsuit. He or she would likely have to hire a new bankruptcy attorney to do so. This would be an extra expense. It would put a pause in the litigation. His or her bankruptcy lawyer may help your ex-spouse see that lawsuit is a waste of time and money. These might be enough to have him or her decide to stop spending money on this.
- Proof of your actual finances
Part of your ex-spouse’s motivation may be some expectation that you have hidden assets with which to pay damages. Assuming you really don’t, your bankruptcy documents should make that case for you quite persuasively. That paperwork, filed under oath in your bankruptcy case, will paint a thorough and honest picture of your finances. It will convincingly show that you have little worth chasing. This reality should catch the attention of his or her lawyer. The lawyer’s self-interest will make him or her concerned about investing too much in chasing you. Even if your ex-spouse is very angry, he or she may be convinced that continuing to fight is not worthwhile.
- More difficult elements to prove
When you file your bankruptcy case, you immediately make it harder for your ex-spouse to win against you. He or she doesn’t just need to show that under the law you’ve caused damage to her person or property. In other words, your ex-spouse doesn’t just need to win the state court lawsuit. In addition now he or she must also show that this debt you owe fits within some limited categories of debts that are not discharged (written off) in bankruptcy.
Your actions must be determined to have been “willful and malicious” Otherwise the ex-spouse’s claim against you would be discharged (legally written off forever). That generally means that your actions must be found to have been intentional and been done without any just cause or excuse. This makes it harder for your ex-spouse to make you pay anything. His or her lawyer will be obligation to advise him or her about this.
Conclusion
Once your ex-spouse and his or her lawyer are forced to pause in the litigation, see the truth of your finances, and realize that your bankruptcy has created an additional major hurdle to getting anything out of you, they may well decide that the lawsuit against you will not succeed. And even if they keep pressing ahead, your bankruptcy will make it harder to prevail against you.
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.
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