She came in for a free consultation. She tells me that after 10 years, her marriage is broken and her husband has moved out. They own a house valued at $200,000 (it was worth $300,000 a couple of years ago) with a $250,000 mortgage. She wants to keep the house. He works for the County Read the Rest…

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Can Keep You in your Home THE PROBLEM: Consider the following (unfortunately) common situation faced by many homeowners: their home in the current depressed real estate market is worth $150,000. They have two mortgages on the property that they obtained during the real estate boom several years ago. The have a first Read the Rest…

Seeing a lawyer for a bankruptcy problem is much like seeing a dentist. You try to ignore the pain as long as you can before you make an appointment. When you finally do, you wonder why you waited so long and went through months or years of unnecessary discomfort. As an attorney who sees clients Read the Rest…

How Did This Happen? I doubt that you planned to be sued in foreclosure. Most likely, you planned for your home or other real estate to be a primary investment. Unfortunately, the economy didn’t cooperate. Or, in a world of constantly rising real estate prices, you kept borrowing against imagined equity, assuming that the market Read the Rest…

Not all loans are alike. A tuition bill is not a student loan. As a general rule, student loans are non-dischargeable debts, which means that you will still have to pay the loan off even after filing for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Under current law, this is true for both federal and private Read the Rest…

Bankruptcy is intended to give you a fresh start- all of your credit card debt, medical bills, deficiency judgments and unsecured debt become nothing more than a bad memory. But what about your nasty tax liabilities? Will they follow you forever? This is a question my clients frequently ask. Well, it depends. In general, if Read the Rest…