New York may have better bankruptcy exemptions than most other states, but a New York Times article asks whether one property right is even an asset at all: rent-stabilized apartments. Here’s the background: New York City maintains a set of laws that protect apartment renters from rent price increases. One is “rent control,” which provides …
Is a New York City Rent-Stabilized Apartment an Asset in Bankruptcy? Read More »
One of the quirks of bankruptcy law is that it defers to state governments on a crucial issue: exemptions. People filing New York bankruptcy might be able to keep more of their homes’ values or wages out of the bankruptcy estate (and away from the trustee and creditors) than debtors filing elsewhere. In early October, …
Study Gives New York’s Bankruptcy Exemptions a Solid Grade Read More »
On October 29, 2012, tropical storm Sandy made landfall in the Mid-Atlantic states, causing storm surges in New York City and wreaking devastation in New Jersey and elsewhere. Many New Yorkers’ homes were destroyed, but as one might expect their mortgages were not. It’s been documented that natural disasters lead people to file bankruptcy, so …
Many people who were badly hit by the housing bust might have avoided talking to a bankruptcy lawyer because they heard about the so-called “lock-in effect.” The “lock-in effect” hypothesizes that underwater homeowners will refuse to move to new locations where work is available because they don’t want to sell their homes at a loss, …
Don’t Let Stories About the ‘Lock-In Effect’ Keep You in Your Underwater House Read More »
One of the more popular laws passed after the housing bust was the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. Before it was enacted, if a lender canceled or forgave all or a portion of a homeowner’s mortgage, the homeowner would have to pay income tax on the forgiven sum via an IRS Form 1099-C. …
Federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act Set to Expire Before 2013 Read More »
Identity theft is one of those crimes that can happen to New Yorkers without warning and can take months to years to resolve at great expense. Worse, there’s little one can do to prevent it, aside from keeping private information secure. As if this weren’t bad enough in itself, people are reporting a new ripple …
Medical Identity Theft Can Throw You into New York Bankruptcy Read More »
You know the story: real estate prices rose through the 2000s, businesses prospered, and home ownership grew with the houses. Houses that the owners financed with low-interest mortgages that they thought they could easily pay off. Then the bubble burst. Unemployment soared, and the homeowners who could not afford to pay down their mortgages also …
Lessons Learned from Comparing the U.S. Mortgage System to Spain’s Read More »
This is the second post in a two-part series on the Department of Education’s Income-Based Repayment (IBR) program for federally backed student loans. Under an IBR plan New Yorkers and other Americans with eligible loans can make lower monthly payments to the government based on their disposable income if their income is too low to …
Income-Based Repayment Plans for Student Loans in 10 Points (Part 2 of 2) Read More »
Aside from mortgage debt, one of the more common problems New York debtors face is student loans. These debts can be challenging for debtors to deal with because in 1998 the federal government subjected all federally backed student debt to the undue hardship test for bankruptcy dichargeability. In 2005, it extended it to private student …
Income-Based Repayment Plans for Student Loans in 10 Points (Part 1 of 2) Read More »
The most common route for filing bankruptcy in New York is file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It’s quicker than Chapter 13 and allows people to discharge many types of debt. In some cases, though, a person may be ineligible for Chapter 7 and must file in Chapter 13, which is often called a “wage earners …
Chapter 13 Debt Limits Won’t Stymie Your New Bankruptcy Read More »
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