Can I Keep My COVID-19 Stimulus Payment if I File Bankruptcy
If you live on Earth and have not been in a coma recently, you’ve probably been overwhelmed by bad news related to the coronavirus and the brutal economic fallout caused by weeks of business shutdowns. But there is some good news contained in the CARES Act, passed by congress and signed into law by President […]
Will I Lose My Tax Refund if I File for Bankruptcy?
With 2018 upon us, we’re within just a few weeks of being able to file our 2017 tax returns – which may mean a big tax refund! For many of my bankruptcy clients, tax refund season is an important time of year. It might mean purchasing that new vehicle they desperately need, or putting new […]
The Bankruptcy Process: From your Initial Consultation to Case Filing
Our blog post last week focused on the emergency bankruptcy filing – typically any case filed less than a week after first meeting to discuss your financial situation. Since you should generally only consider an emergency bankruptcy filing as a response to an urgent problem (usually a home foreclosure, car repossession or wage garnishment), you’ll […]
Do I Have to Pay My HOA Dues After I file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?
While the idea of a Homeowners’ Association (HOA) doesn’t appeal to everyone, for some folks in the Denver metro Area, especially in suburbs like Highlands Ranch and Parker, these associations help ensure every house and yard in a neighborhood is kept up to the community’s standard, and keep up common areas such as community parks […]
What is a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Discharge?
There’s a pretty simple short answer to this one: The chapter 7 discharge is the reason you file chapter 7 bankruptcy in the first place. The discharge is actually a court order doing two separate, but related things: 1) Giving you complete forgiveness of any dischargeable debt you owed to any person, business, or government […]
Supreme Court Disallows Lien-stripping in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Cases
More on this later, but for now, I wanted to share the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest big bankruptcy decision, Bank of America v. Caulkett, issued by the Court today. The decision prohibits debtors from “stripping” their “wholly unsecured liens in chapter 7 bankruptcy cases – something which had been very rarely allowed by bankruptcy courts anyway, and […]
What is a “No Asset” Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case?
When you file for bankruptcy protection under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, you have to tell the court and your trustee about all property you own. You list all “real property” (your home if you own it; your rental property; land, etc.) on Schedule A of your bankruptcy schedules, and all “personal property” (everything […]
Study: Bankruptcy Improves Life; Improves Society
I feel like I’ve seen these facts demonstrated in real life on hundreds of occasions, but it’s great to see some solid research backing it up. The paper published by Will Dobbie of Harvard University and Jae Song with the Social Security Administration looks at the lives of Debtors who were in the midst of […]
10 Reasons I Love Bankruptcy. No, Seriously
When I was in law school, I had NO thought that I would ever practice bankruptcy law for a living. To be honest, I thought my class on bankruptcy was pretty boring, and I didn’t connect with it. But over the course of the last several years, while helping thousands of individuals and married couples […]