By JOANNE KAUFMAN No long chats with the doorman.
No umbrellas or wet boots in the hall.
No welcome mats or decorations on the front door.
No wearing flip-flops in the lobby.
These are but a few of the more extreme rules that apartment boards in New York City have imposed, or at least thought about imposing, on the residents of their buildings.

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and CATHERINE RAMPELL

Written by: Robert DeMarco

Do you owe too much? Too little? When filing for bankruptcy, one answer points to a rule yet the other points inward.
If you’re in over your head and are thinking about filing for bankruptcy, you’ve got too much debt.

Proponents of relief for student loan borrowers in bankruptcy had reason to cheer this month in both Washington and Oregon. Student loan obligations are presumptively non-dischargeable in bankruptcy absent a showing of “undue hardship.” 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(8). To determine if a debtor has shown undue hardship, courts follow the three-part test from Brunner. See In re Pena, 155 F.3d at 1111–12. Under Brunner, the debtor must prove that: (1) he cannot maintain, based on current income and

Workers compensation benefits are funds made payable to an individual who was injured while on the job and unable to perform their duties due to the injury.  The compensation may be considered a main source of income for the household.  If bankruptcy is an option it is common to wonder if benefits can be protected [...]

You would think that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act would apply to the employees of your Creditors. Why is that? The main reason seems to have been legislative deference to the political power of the credit industry. This means that a creditor’s in house collectors attempting to collect debts in the company name are exempt. Creditors employees do lose this protection if they use a false name indicating that a separate debt collector is involved.

Because the FDCPA applies only to debt collectors, it is useful to look at the narrow exceptions to FDCPA coverage. For purposes of applying the FDCPA, process servers are specifically and narrowly excluded. A process server is not a debt collector while serving or attempting to serve legal process in connection with the judicial enforcement of a debt.

This isn’t my usual bankruptcy fare, but it’s worth sharing and a lot more interesting.  A friend of mine from college has shared some amazing drawings that his grandfather did during World War Two.
You can see the illustrations on Buzzfeed and a few are linked below.

 

As the weather warms and people meet for the first time in months around barbecue grills nationwide, the talk is sure to include a time-honored tradition: ‘poor talk’.