The Boston Globe recently reported that Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is not backing off her invetigation into the practices of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System known as MERS. Recently, a Massachusetts bankruptcy judge found no fault in the use of MERS to record mortages in dummy names at the registry of deeds statewide and [...]

One difference between filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 and filing under Chapter 13 concerns how the means test for the different chapters treat contributions to retirement accounts such as 401(k) and IRA plans. In Chapter 7, any contributions you make are ignored. However, in Chapter 13, contributions to a retirement plan can reduce the [...]

With the increasing advent of electronic banking options, and cards of all kinds, can you really keep up with it all anymore. More importantly, could the proliferation of debit and credit options actually dive comsumers closer to bankruptcy? I think so. In the days when people reconciled their statements, and debited their own accounts with [...]

A few years ago, the bankruptcy code was amended to “encourage” debtors to reaffirm thier auto and truck loans; if no reaffirmation agreement was signed within a specified time after filing the bankruptcy case, lenders got back their repossession rights without having to go to court and ask permission. But what happens if you lease [...]

Just a quick update: the Borders bankruptcy liquidation sales could start as early as Friday July 22 at the remaining stores in the Methuen Loop, and the Borders Express in Salem, NH. The Boston Globe has an excellent article on one of the factors that did in the chain bookstore: excessive browsing. Many folks used [...]

It’s not financially easy for many people to hire a bankruptcy attorney, and they might try to think up some “creative” ways to swing the deal. Here’s one that won’t work: giving your lawyer a series of post-dated checks, intending him to cash them at various points AFTER the case is filed. It’s a little [...]

The Borders bookstore chain got a lot closer to bankruptcy liquidation over the weekend, as no bidders emerged by the bankruptcy court’s deadline. This probably means the eventual shuttering of the Methuen store at the Loop, and the mini-outlet in the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H., due to the bankruptcy. There could be [...]

If you would like to see the bankrupt Borders bookstores in Methuen and Salem, N.H. remain open, you better put a bid in on them before Sunday night. As of now, it looks like the whole chain might be headed to a Chapter 7 liquidation sale, which would eventually close the Methuen and Salem stores [...]

If you are thinking of filing for bankruptcy, and still need basic transportation to get to work and tote your family, you could be helped by the notion of “cramming down a car.” Don’t worry; it’s nothing like the picture at left! Actually, its the car loan that you want to cram down, not the [...]

Recently I published an article over on AVVO about how debtors trying to get themselves out of student loans through a bankruptcy filing soon find themselves caught in a Catch-22 situation. You can read it here. It wasn’t always this way; up to the mid 1990′s, student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy seven years after [...]