Those are the words I hate to hear from a new client. Bankruptcy attorneys are in business because we truly want to help people.  It’s an emotionally tough area of law, dealing all the time with clients who are financially hurting.  Usually my clients are also hurting in other ways, related to what caused or […]

“How do we pick ourselves up when Wall St.’s stealing our bootstraps?” “We are not leaving.  Not while the richest 1% own 75% of the USA’s wealth. “ These were some of the hand-written signs at the ongoing “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration in front of and around the New York Stock Exchange as it entered […]

Both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 stop a foreclosure of your home.  One or the other COULD be better for you.  Which one is it? Many considerations come into play when deciding whether a Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy will be the better path for you.  If we focus only on the factors involved in […]

Both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 can help you save your home. Which one is better for YOU? You’ve probably heard that filing a bankruptcy stops a foreclosure. You may have also heard that Chapter 13—the repayment version of bankruptcy—can be a good tool for saving your home in the long run. Both statements are […]

Does the recent increase in foreclosures signal the long-anticipated surge in defaults of adjustable-rate mortgages that were scheduled to reset their interest rates right about now? That’s a question that came to mind when I noticed the recent uptick in new home foreclosures. Option ARMs gave borrowers a choice of paying principal and interest, interest-only, […]

In August, mortgage lenders started so many home foreclosures that the month-to-month increase was the biggest since August of 2007. For nearly a year the number of foreclosures has been relatively low as lenders have reacted to an explosion of challenges to the legality of their mortgage and foreclosure practices. But this new surge in […]

In order to start the process for filing for bankruptcy, the first thing you must do is gather up all of your financial records, basically putting together an inventory of everything you own and everything that you owe. In particular, you will need: A list of all of your assets, such as your house, car(s), household stuff, […]

Don’t underestimate the power of bankruptcy’s automatic stay. That’s the federal law that stops your creditors from pursuing you, your money, and your possessions at the moment your case is filed. In a couple of my recent blogs, I told you about the relatively rare situations in which the automatic stay does not apply—situations in […]

That all depends on whether your case is filed under Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.  Assuming that you’ve provided your attorney with all of the information needed to get the case filed, for a Chapter 7 case, you should figure that it will take about four to five months until you get your discharge.  For […]

In VERY RARE circumstances, ALL of your creditors can pursue you EVEN if you file for bankruptcy. Here’s how to avoid these rare but serious circumstances. In my last blog I listed three special classes of debts for which you can still be pursued even though you filed for bankruptcy. They are exceptions to the […]