The House and Senate sprinted to recess for the Nov. 7 elections without completing action on several pending clarifications to bankruptcy law. Bills covering issues ranging from the treatment of tithing to an increase in chapter 7 trustee …
Part I of this article looks at consumer bankruptcy filing rates and attempts to identify some trends and economic indicators that might predict those filing rates. The $64,000 question (which, adjusted for inflation, today would be the "$4…
To enable a fresh start, debtors often seek to avoid judicial liens that impair a claimed homestead exemption. With adjustable-rate mortgages, rising credit costs and increasing delinquencies, there is likely to be more activity in this mot…
As most observers acknowledge, the automatic stay and the discharge injunction are the two cornerstones of consumer bankruptcy law. They are, respectively, a fundamental debtor protection and a fundamental debtor objective. 1 The automatic …
Debtors, chapter 13 trustees and courts around the country are wrestling with whether "projected" disposable income is different than disposable income on the B22C form, and whether "applicable commitment period" is a time period or a multi…
"You can never plan the future by the past." -Edmund Burke It has been said that life is all about timing. This is especially true when examining someone's financial status. Someone could be solvent today and insolvent tomorrow (or vice ver…
Although anecdotal, many Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service attorneys who practice bankruptcy would most likely state that one of their largest complaints with the previous version of the Bankruptcy Code was their inability …
The doctrine of tenants by the entireties contemplates the ownership of property by the marital union itself ("one flesh") and not by the separate spouses as co-tenants. As a result, the Bankruptcy Code preserves the debtor's right, when on…
Editor's Note: See Related Article on p. 10. (Legislative Update) Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) significantly changes chapter 11 cases of individuals. After reviewing how chapter 11 works in an individual'…
Under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, 1 there was a split of authority as to the disposition of funds paid to the chapter 13 trustee after commencement of a case where the case was converted to a chapter 7 case before confirmation of a p…