The Middle District of Florida recently ruled that the automatic stay is a blanket protection that applies to multiple creditor claims, even if there is not a perfect symmetry of parties. The creditor is also known as the lender and the debtor as the borrower. Facts In Peterson et al v. Avantair et al, Avaintair...Read More

The credit counseling requirement was one of the more talked-about Chapter 7 reforms in the last round of legislative updates. Now, almost a decade later, what does this prerequisite mean in practical terms? Does the average consumer filer even notice this requirement? Credit counseling background The main reason that legislators took up bankruptcy reform in...Read More

Household debt rose $241 billion in the third quarter of 2013. Analysts at the New York Fed say the 2.1 percent increase was the largest jump since 2007. The debt was primarily mortgage debt and new car loans, which is seen as a sign that consumers are gaining confidence in an improving economy. However, student-loan...Read More

Student loans are very difficult, but not impossible, to discharge in bankruptcy. Prior to the 2005 bankruptcy reforms, student loans were segregated into two classes: private loans and federally-guaranteed loans. Private loans, mostly loans obtained to attend a private technical school or career-training school, were generally dischargeable in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy at any time....Read More

Bankruptcy does not have to mean the end of the game. When you and your friends played “Monopoly,” declaring bankruptcy meant financial failure so intense that recovery was difficult or impossible. Some moneylenders and debt-buyers like to perpetuate that idea in the real world, to keep honest American families form declaring bankruptcy to eliminate debt...Read More

Americans are back to borrowing at a near-record pace. The government recently announced that consumer debt rose 1.1 percent to $11.28 trillion in the third quarter of 2013, the highest such increase since the first quarter of 2008 and close to the all-time record high, set just before the housing collapse in the third quarter...Read More

An increasing number of cities are turning to the power of eminent domain to reduce the number of residential home foreclosures. Cities in New Jersey, New York, Minnesota and California are exploring the possibility of “friendly condemnations” in which the city buys the mortgage of an underwater homeowner. If the investor refuses to sell, the...Read More