Some folks just love to wait until the last minute to get improtant things done. And then there are those folks who wait until after the last minute . . . In the world of bankruptcy law, it has long been thought that there is nothing that can be done to recover a house that [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Under the present bankruptcy law, it is very difficult to use a Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan to impose your own mortgage modification on the primary lender for a residential home. There have been near constant efforts to get the Congress to change this, but so far the pleas have fallen mostly on deaf ears. The [...]

A quick primer on the rules concerning short sales as opposed to filing personal bankruptcy: Homeowners with underwater houses are tempted to look first at a short sale as a way out of their predicament. There are at least three drawbacks to this approach. 1. Short sales can still leave you with a debt that [...]

As a corollary to the idea that you may have more creditors than you think, prospective bankruptcy filers need to check to see if they have creditors who aren’t sending them a bill every month. The most likely place to look for these low lying creditors is in the realm of liens filed against the [...]

After filing a bankruptcy petition, debtors should not be surprised if they are approached (through their attorney) about signing a reaffirmation agreement with one or more creditors. Simply put, a reaffirmation agreement is an agreement to pay an existing debt despite the bankruptcy. Most attorneys and quite a few bankruptcy judges are leery of encouraging [...]

Many if not most homeowners who have to file for bankruptcy would like to stay in their homes, if possible. Sometimes staying put is even the primary, or only, reason for filing the case in the first place. If a homeowner is current on their mortgage, keeping the house will not be a problem. One [...]

California bankruptcy guru Cathy Moran makes a good point: although many consumers have personal relationships with their banks, and sometimes some good feeling for the institution, your bank is not necessarily your friend when you are filing for bankruptcy. The principal problem is that banks have a legal right of “setoff,” meaning that they can [...]

Many persons contemplating bankruptcy wonder about the effect of filing a bankruptcy case on the car (or cars) that they own. Starting April 1st, the federal bankruptcy exemption for equity in an automobile will be raised to $3400. (Until then, it is slightly less). Please remember that this exemption only applies to your equity interest [...]