A homeowner whose divorce was final before he filed for bankruptcy can’t claim a homestead exemption when the property was sold and he received half the proceeds, according to a recent ruling of the Bankruptcy Court in New Hampshire in the Visconti case. The debtor lived in Hampstead in 2007 when he conveyed his interest [...]

There is no end in sight to the increase in bankruptcy filings in New Hampshire. The Nashua Telegraph reports that there were 584 filings in the month of March 2010, 79 cases more than thiose filed in March 2009. All but 13 of the cases were personal bankruptcies. If you live in New Hampshire, I [...]

Just last week I was attending a meeting of creditors with one of my clients on a Massachusetts bankruptcy case, and we were watching the trustee handle a previous case involving a “pro se” debtor — a do-it yourselfer not represented by an attorney. Well this poor fellow just about got torn apart by the [...]

Anyone who files a bankruptcy case has to put a numerical dollar value on all of their assets. For homeowners, their largest asset is usually their house. An accurate value of all real estate held by a debtor is necessary to file, even if the property is “under water” to a large mortgage. You could [...]

I am already rethinking my view, stated here earlier this week, that a bankruptcy lawyer’s experience level should not be the most important factor in a client’s decision of whom to hire to work on their case. While I still wouldn’t rank it as the most important factor, the news that, on the West Coast, [...]

The bankruptcy court in Massachusetts has a new judge, following the retirement of Bankruptcy Judge Joel B. Rosenthal. The new judge is Melvin S. Hoffman, perviously a bankruptcy lawyer in private practice. According to the court’s press release, “Mr. Hoffman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yeshiva University and a J.D. degree from Syracuse [...]

Pete Stolcers isn’t a bankruptcy attorney, or any sort of lawyer for that matter; he is a speculator who trades options on the New York and Chicago exchanges. As such, he keeps a keen eye out for any subtle hints on future economic trends. Here is a snippet from his latest newsletter: “Foreclosure rates in [...]

Watch should this video about the state of bankruptcy in America Leave it all behind! by the Dalliance

Besides their asinine jingles, there is now another reason to avoid the odious website known as FreeCreditReport.com — it’s no longer free. Of course, it never really was free. To get anything of value off the site always required a subscription that cost about $15. But now it’s really not free; even the worthless basic [...]

You think I’m kidding, right? No one with a big pile of cash needs to file for bankruptcy, right? Well, not so fast. Just one example is very topical now, around April 15th; some folks are getting big tax refunds. Not big enough to pay off all the debts, mind you, but big enough that [...]