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Answers to questions when Filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in Seattle, Washington from Lawyers at Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm.
Disclose All of Your Income, Expenses and Assets
Anyone that files for bankruptcy protection must disclose all income, expenses and assets in their petition.  The backbone of bankruptcy is the automatic stay, but the body is treating creditors according to the type of debt owed and the priority of payment of debts required under the bankruptcy code.  Without full disclosure treating all parties fairly cannot take place.  It is not the bankruptcy court’s duty or the duty of the trustee assigned to your case to find assets.  It is the bankruptcy filer’s duty to be open and honest about their income, expenses and assets in exchange for the discharge of their debts.  If you have not fully disclosed everything you may not only lose your right to a discharge of your debts, but criminal charges could be filed and fines imposed.
Do Not Borrow Funds or Take an Early Withdrawal from an Individual Retirement Account or 401(k) Plan
Bankruptcy provides exemptions to protect assets such as retirement funds.  We meet with client after client that has unfortunately borrowed or withdrawn from their retirement accounts all of their retirement money trying to pay off debts or stay afloat.  You must weigh all the positives and negative before choosing to withdraw or borrow against your retirement accounts.  Bankruptcy provides exemptions that can protect for the average person all of their retirement funds.  You can file bankruptcy and still keep your retirement.
Do Not Transfer Money or Assets to Friends or Family Members
The simple transfer of a car to a friend or family member before filing bankruptcy to reduce your assets is not allowed.  It must be disclosed and will only complicate your bankruptcy case.  When filing bankruptcy the sole goal is to successfully discharge all of your eligible debts.  Transferring assets in an attempt to hide assets will only complicate your bankruptcy case and possibly have your right to a discharge take away.
Do Not Continue to Use Your Credit Cards
One of the most common complications in a consumer bankruptcy is the use of credit close in time to filing for bankruptcy.  The problem is the recent use of credit is circumstantial evidence that the user never had the intent to pay the debt back.  If you are unable to pay your bills as they come due how can you incur more debt?  If you are not making payments to your creditors do not continue to use your credit cards.  If you are having trouble paying your credit cards and are missing payments regularly you need to stop incurring more debt.
Save Your Pay Stub or Proof of Income Each Month
In 2005 Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) changing the bankruptcy code and creating what is commonly called the Means Test.  The Means Test is based upon local and national standards for expenses.  The Means Test also uses the six-month average of your gross income extrapolated to 12 months.  You will need all six months of your pay statements or other proof of income.
Do Not Take a Cash Advance on a Credit Card
Taking a cash advance close in time to filing bankruptcy can be a huge problem.  This can be a problem for the same reasons detailed in Number 4 listed below.  It really depends upon the circumstances, but if you take a $5,000 cash advance on a credit card three weeks before filing bankruptcy you will probably hear from the credit card company when you file bankruptcy.  An adversary alleging fraud could be the likely result.
Review and Document Self-Employment or 1099 Income
If you are self-employed or receive 1099 income it is essential that you know what your income is and what your expenses are for each of the six-months prior to filing for bankruptcy.  Just like in Number 6 below, the Means Test uses a six-month average of your income to determine if you have disposable income available to creditors each month.  Determining what your take home pay is when self-employed or receiving 1099 income is always more time consuming, but absolutely necessary prior to filing bankruptcy.
Make Sure All of Your Tax Returns Are Filed
In 2005 the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) provided new guidelines for the filing of tax returns and bankruptcy.  If you file for bankruptcy you will need to provide your tax return for the previous year, or the current year if requested.  If you fail to file your return that becomes due after you file for bankruptcy the IRS can request dismissal of your bankruptcy case.  Section 1308 of the Bankruptcy Code requires filers of chapter 13 bankruptcy cases to have filed all of their tax returns for the previous four years before the filing of the bankruptcy petition.  This is one of the standard questions asked by the standing chapter 13 trustee at the meeting of the creditors.
Review Your Monthly Expenses
All consumer bankruptcy petitions include Schedule J.  Schedule J is the estimate of the average or projected monthly expenses for your household at the time the bankruptcy case is filed.  Prior to scheduling a free consultation with an experienced bankruptcy attorney take a few minutes and review your bank account statements and get a better idea of where your money is going each month.  This will help to determine if you have any disposable income available to creditors.
Do Not Wait To Speak To An Experienced Bankruptcy Attorney
Even if you are not ready to file bankruptcy speaking with an experienced bankruptcy attorney will give you the information you need to make educated decisions.  To determine if you are speaking with an experienced bankruptcy attorney, ask the attorney how many other areas of law they practice, how long they have practiced bankruptcy law, how many bankruptcy cases have they filed and to name the trustees in the jurisdiction and what document requirements each trustee requires.  If the attorney does not know who the trustees are and what each of them requires they do not regularly file bankruptcy cases.  One the most common problems we face is meeting with potential clients when it is already too late.  If you have been served with a summons and complaint you need to speak with a bankruptcy attorney.  If you owe taxes and the IRS or FTB has indicated, they are going to garnish your wages you need to speak with a bankruptcy lawyer.
Contact Us Today When Filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in Seattle, Washington
While dealing with financial complications can be overwhelming, Tom McAvity can help you manage your unique circumstances. If you have additional questions regarding bankruptcy, contact Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm by calling our Seattle location at (206) 486-1280 to schedule your personal consultation.
The post The Top 10 Things to Do Before Filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in Seattle, Washington appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.

Answers To Common Bankruptcy FAQ
If you have questions about filing for bankruptcy protection in the state of Oregon, attorney Tom McAvity has extensive knowledge of bankruptcy law and can provide sound legal counsel. To answer your bankruptcy FAQ, we can review your financial needs in a personal consultation with a Bankruptcy Lawyer in Portland Oregon to ensure you understand your legal options. For individuals in Portland, OR, our team can help you design financial goals suited to your unique circumstances and determine if bankruptcy is right for you.
 
What Can Bankruptcy Do for Me?
Bankruptcy can eliminate any legal obligation requiring you to pay all, or most of your debts. In some circumstances, it can stop the foreclosure of property by issuing an “automatic stay,” protecting your car or home. Bankruptcy can also ensure your utilities remain on, while you catch up on any missed payments. Filing for bankruptcy can put an end to wage garnishments and prevent creditors from attempting to collect unpaid balances.
 
Bankruptcy can eliminate any legal obligation requiring you to pay all, or most of your debts.
 
Is There Anything Bankruptcy Cannot Help Me With?
Filing for bankruptcy will not discharge debts that bankruptcy law singles out for special treatment. You must continue to pay child support, alimony, some student loans, restitution orders, and criminal fines even after filing for bankruptcy.
 
What Type of Bankruptcy Am I Able to File for?
Chapter 7 Bankruptcy: This option is appropriate for those with low incomes or for individuals with extensive expenses. Also called “straight” or “liquidation” bankruptcy, Chapter 7 allows you to sell certain types of property to pay creditors. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy: Also known as “reorganization,” Chapter 11 bankruptcy is designed for businesses with very large debts. This option enables organizations to pay debt over time.  Chapter 12 Bankruptcy: This form of bankruptcy provides debt relief for family farmers or fishermen. It enables these individuals to restructure their expenses to avoid foreclosure.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy: This type of bankruptcy is best for individuals with a regular income. An individual can design an installment plan to pay debts back using their current source of income.
Will I Have to Appear in Court?
In most bankruptcy cases, you will be required to meet with creditors and the bankruptcy trustee to address financial information and answer questions. You will only be required to appear in court if you need to dispute a debt.
 
What Happens to Anyone Who Has Co-Signed On My Loan?
Unfortunately, if a friend or family member has co-signed on a loan, he or she may be liable for your debt if you file for bankruptcy. However, these circumstances may be mitigated by filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
 
Will Bankruptcy Help with My Student Loans?
Generally, students will not be affected in bankruptcy. However, there are two exceptions to this rule:
If a student loan is not insured or guaranteed by a unit of the government, the loan may be discharged. If paying back the loan will “impose an undue hardship on you and your dependents,” then the student loan may be discharged.
Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm have Bankruptcy Lawyer in Portland Oregon that can review the details of your student loans to determine whether these circumstances apply to you.
 
How Can I Make Creditors Stop Calling Me Regarding My Past Due Bills?
When you file for bankruptcy, all creditors and bill collectors must stop collection efforts entirely once they are aware you have filed. If any creditor continues to try to collect after they have been made aware of your bankruptcy, they may be sanctioned in court.
 
Contact Us Today
While dealing with financial complications can be overwhelming, Tom McAvity can help you manage your unique circumstances. If you have additional questions regarding bankruptcy, contact Northwest Debt Relief Law Firm by calling our Bankruptcy Lawyer in Portland Oregon at  (503) 828-0964 to schedule your personal consultation.
The post Answers To Common Bankruptcy FAQ’s from a Bankruptcy Lawyer in Portland Oregon appeared first on Portland Bankruptcy Attorney | Northwest Debt Relief.

By Doree Lewak

NYC cabbies are being driven to the edge of financial ruin and despair as ride-hail apps like Uber and Lyft continue to take their customers.

Last week, in the fourth driver suicide since November, Nicanor Ochisor, 65, hanged himself inside his Queens home, depressed over the plummeting value of the taxi medallion he owned that was supposed to finance his home and looming retirement. The value plunged from $1 million to around $180,000 over the last five years.
Last month, longtime black-car driver Doug Schifter shot himself in front of City Hall over money troubles. And two livery drivers killed themselves in recent months, one of whom, Danilo Castillo, pointedly wrote his suicide note on the back of a Taxi and Limousine Commission summons.

“We’ve seen this building over the past three years in particular. The financial crisis is crushing enough, but it’s the political silence that’s destroying people,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Without the political will to cap them, the number of for-hire cars in circulation has swelled to about 100,000 (roughly two-thirds are Uber drivers). The number of yellow cabs is capped by the city at 13,587.

The resulting yellow-cab ridership is way down, going from about 475,000 fares per day in 2014 to between 175,000 to 250,000 per day now, according to the TLC.

“Very clearly, there is less work to go around. [Taxi driver] earnings have taken a hit,” said TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg.

Full-time daytime cabbies saw a 23 percent drop in their annual earnings from 2013 to 2016, from $45,529 to $35,344, the Alliance says.

While Uber and Lyft drivers have little overhead (they do pay onetime $550 TLC license fees), hacks who own their own medallions, which are usually financed through banks, have average monthly expenses of “$6,000 to $9,000 per month,” said Desai.

This perfect financial storm has many cabbies — mostly immigrants with few career options — silently suffering, or seeking exits like bankruptcy, or worse.

“Some people are too proud to tell anybody they’re failing,” said one medallion-leasing veteran.

“For every 40 bankruptcy cases, I now see two or three cabbies. That’s a significant number of filings — all in the last two years,” a bankruptcy attorney told the Post.

“Guys walk into the TLC to return their medallions in tears,” he said.

Here five drivers share their stories:

Nicolae Hent, 61, was Ochisor’s best friend. The cabbie of 30 years predicts a bleak future for fellow hacks.

“There will be more like that — he’s not the first and he won’t be the last,” he said of his pal, whose words haunt him.

“After the cold in January, he said, ‘I can’t make money — I think we’re in big trouble,’ and I told him, ‘We have to fight — things will get better.’”

Hent, who owes about $140,000 on his medallion mortgage, told The Post, “I’m in worse shape than him. I’m scared — but I won’t [take my life.] I’ll fight my whole life.”

He blames the inaction of lawmakers who refuse to level the playing field between ride-sharing apps like Uber and yellow cabs.

“I like competition, it’s good for consumer,” he said. ”But it’s not competition when you have a free license.”

He estimates he brought home less than $35,000 last year, after a decade of making upwards of $45,000.

“My plan at 62 was to retire and give my medallion to a broker,” he said. Now he has to work harder than he did as a young man.

“I don’t know why my wife is still with me,” he said. “I spend more time in this cab than I do with my own wife.”

Mohammed Sheikh, 62, is drowning in debt.

The Bronx-based married father of three who worked the night shift seven days a week for 18 years, reminisces about the good old days. “I used to make very good money — it was much easier,” he said of his $50,000 take-home.

Passengers “would fight. One guy comes from the right, one from the left, and scream, ‘He’s stealing my cab.’ It was never empty.”

Then Uber came along.

Last year he estimates his pay at a paltry $17,000. “It’s not enough. I have to quit very soon. Every day I struggle about what to do — I can’t survive doing this anymore.

“I never imagined this — I was always making good money. I would work seven days, but when you make good money, you don’t get tired.”

His two adult children help support Sheikh, who suffers from diabetes, and his wife, but he’s on the brink.

“The only way to survive is use credit cards” he said.

“I just make rent,” he said of the $1,500-a-month two-bedroom. With a son off to college next year and tuition looming, Sheikh is panicked. “I’m going into debt with the credit cards — I’m more than $10,000 in debt.”

Nick A., 28, is a rookie from St. Petersburg, Russia, who started driving a yellow taxi eight months ago.

He thought he’d make some extra money for his family — his wife, 4-year-old son and year-old daughter — while working as a manager at Yellow Cab Management, where he’s been working four days a week for past two years.

Now, he works seven days a week, starting his day at 3am tooling around in his Ford hybrid, armed with a pack of Newports and water bottle.

“Sometimes you can drive for an hour and no passengers. Right now it’s hard, business is terrible, but it will get better.”

This past week was his worst — netting $60 one day — but he’s determined to stay in the business and own his own medallion one day. “I still think I can make money in this business.”

Still, if things get tough, the whippersnapper with an economics degree from Russia can always reinvent himself. “Besides yellow cab, I can always do another job. I would never make a decision like [he] did,” he said of Ochisor. “Maybe he bought medallion when it was high. You can still make money from the medallion.”

Vinod Malhotra, 53, is a worrier.

The 53-year-old Hicksville, LI married father of three is anxious about paying for college for his teen children, but he credits his kids for never hounding him for the latest phones and gadgets. “The kids are wise — they understand my income is down. They don’t ask for picnics or vacations. They say,
‘Don’t worry — we’ll get a [college] scholarship.’”

Still, the night-shift driver, who works from 5pm to 5am six days a week, worries about foreclosure and bankruptcy. He never imagined being in this position back in 2010 when he snagged a medallion for $600,000. “At that time, you feel lucky to get it for under a million. And now we are very worried about how to pay our [$6,000 monthly] bills.”

Last year his take-home pay was $30,000, down from $45,000 during boom times. “We cannot survive long — we can’t make payments.”

When it’s slow, he drives by Penn Station on Thursday rush hour to join a conga line of 15 cabs. “That never would have happened five years ago. Before, the customer would wait 15 minutes. Now, we do.”

A close friend and fellow medallion owner is battling stage 4 kidney cancer and can’t work or even sell his medallion. “Anything can happen at any time,” said Malhotra. “We always thought the medallion was our pension. Now it only creates debt.”

Bernard Sasu, 50, is about to jump ship.

The married father of two teens from downtown Brooklyn is grim. “It doesn’t matter if you start early, if you start late. It’s the same thing every day. You don’t make any money.”

His saving grace? “Old people don’t know how to use Uber.”

When he first started driving in 2011 he’d take home $200 a day. “When I first started, it was all about the money. This is NYC — you can’t lose with a taxi.

“Now, forget about it. You have the kids going to school, the parents going to work, but by 10 or 11, there’s nothing.” He said he can drive the length of Manhattan — sometimes for up to two hours — without a fare. “That’s all we do — drive around.”

And that means critical cutbacks for his family. “You have to change some things?” he said, like not eating out or going to the movies.

“You can’t go on vacations like you used to,” said Sasu, who would regularly visit his family in Ghana. “I haven’t been in five years — it’s too expensive.”

Like many of his driver friends who fled in the past few years to become doormen, Sosa is ready to start over, having applied to be an MTA conductor three months ago. “You have to keep going, you can’t give up on life. If you can’t be a driver you do something else,” he said.

“When I came to this country I was a dishwasher. I’m not going back to that.”

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This is not a trick question.I received this letter today from American Express regarding the balance owed by one of my Chapter 13 bankruptcy clients whose case was dismissed.  The letter acknowledges that because of the age of the debt, Amex cannot sue my former client, nor can they report the unpaid balance to the credit bureaus.  Yet they are giving him the opportunity to “settle” this debt for 45% of the balance.Can you think of any reason why anyone would pay Amex anything on this stale account?  I can’t.  But I wonder how many people agree to make payments and possible waive the statute of limitations bar to collections.  If you get a letter with a notice that the debt is stale, don’t even think about making a payment.The post Do You Want to Give Money You Don’t Owe to a Credit Card Company? appeared first on theBKBlog.