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Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Concurrent Bankruptcies Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen

There are myths of people engaging in serial bankruptcies and sometimes people file consecutive bankruptcies, but one thing debtors should not do is file concurrent bankruptcies. The overlapping cases can create needless headaches for everyone involved, especially debtors. The biggest reason not to do this is that it might end up creating a second bankruptcy …

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Tweaking Self-Employment Income to Beat the Means Test Can Be Risky

Recall that debtors can use irregular incomes to their advantage to avoid taking the chapter 7 means test. (In New York bankruptcy, the median family income is $49,632 for a family of one and goes up from there for each additional family member.) The linked post gives as an example an individual who was about …

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Surrendering a Car to Avoid Bankruptcy Probably Won’t Work

Most of the time people want to keep their cars when they’re considering New York bankruptcy. Cars are frequently necessary for commuting, running errands, going on trips out of town, etc. However, sometimes people think that surrendering a vehicle to a lender extinguishes the debt as well. It doesn’t. The situation is similar to that …

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Supreme Court: No Lien-Stripping Junior Mortgages in Chapter 7

The wait is over for homeowners hoping to strip their underwater junior liens in chapter 7 New York bankruptcy. The U.S. Supreme Court consolidated a pair of cases, Bank of America, N.A. v. Caulkett and Bank of America, N.A. v. Toledo-Cardona, because their facts were largely the same, and it held that the answer was …

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Debtors Converting from Chapter 13 to Chapter 7 Get Their Wages Back

If the U.S. Supreme Court was reluctant this year to decide whether a debtor in bankruptcy can sue a creditor for violating the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, it was in a different mood when it heard and decided Harris v. Veigelahn. The case concerned a debtor whose accumulated chapter 13 payments were distributed to …

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Just How Much Is That House Worth in Bankruptcy?

Many New York bankruptcies involve debtors’ houses. A house’s value in bankruptcy can play a crucial role in a number of ways, notably homestead exemptions, discharging underwater junior mortgages, and even choosing between chapter 7 or 13. It’s a big deal. But how do you know how much the house is worth? And just as …

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Moving to New York for Its Homestead Exemption Is Not a Good Idea

In New York bankruptcy, debtor homeowners can benefit from a fairly generous homestead exemption. Real property located in the counties in New York City, Long Island, as well as Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties, get a $150,000 exemption. The exemption in Dutchess, Albany, Columbia, Orange, Saratoga, and Ulster counties is $125,000. Finally, homeowners elsewhere in …

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Stay in Chapter 7 by Deducting Your Health Insurance

Lacking health insurance is almost always a bad idea. People who are injured can end up borrowing large amounts of money that they can’t manage, but there’s one situation in New York bankruptcy where lacking health insurance might not be an impediment: Debtors who don’t have health insurance might still be able to deduct it …

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New York City to Ban Credit Checks for Job Candidates

Credit scores were primarily invented to help lenders gauge debtors’ creditworthiness with a handy, neutral (hopefully) benchmark rather than relying on references or worse, insider dealings. It didn’t take long, however, for other parties to start using them, like landlords seeking reassurance that their tenants would pay rent on time. With employers, however, it’s different. …

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Exemptions and Chapter 13

Given that debtors in chapter 13 New York bankruptcy can keep their assets, it’s unsurprising that one would think that exemptions play no role in such cases. In chapter 7, it’s clear: The exemptions reduce the size of the bankruptcy estate to ensure that debtors can keep a reasonable amount of their property. But exemptions …

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