Tag Archives: hilla

What Is My Redemption Period in Michigan if I Have More Than 3 Acres of Land?

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 1 Comment

As of December, 2011, the amount of acreage owned is no longer a factor in determining the length of the post-foreclosure sheriff’s sale redemption period in Michigan. Prior to December, 2011, foreclosure of land more than 3 acres required a “redemption period” of 12 months as opposed to the 6 months required for non-abandoned property of less than 3 acres.  

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Posted in Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Laws, Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Eviction and Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, Home Mortgages and Bankruptcy, Michigan, Real Estate

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How Can I Save My Home with a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy?

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 1 Comment

While Bankruptcy is one of the most cost-effective and efficient legal means of walking away from an underwater or foreclosed home available, it is also, under the right circumstances, a better means of saving a home in danger of foreclosure than other non-bankruptcy strategies, such as mortgage modification.

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Posted in Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Foreclosure, Home Mortgages and Bankruptcy, Michigan, Mortgage Modifications, Real Estate, Short Sales

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What Is Chapter 13 Bankruptcy?

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a “reorganization” bankruptcy rather than a complete liquidation of debt as in a Chapter 7. A Chapter 13 is, basically, a payment plan enforced by the Federal Bankruptcy Court upon all of your creditors, whether the debt is a “dischargeable” debt like a credit card or “non-dischargeable” debt like a child support arrearage or recent income taxes owed. Contrary to popular belief, you are not required to pay back 100% of what you owe to your creditors in a Chapter 13. 

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Posted in Bankruptcy Process, Businesses in Bankrutpcy, Chapter 13, Home Mortgages and Bankruptcy, Income, Michigan, Property, Tax debt

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Getting a Refund in a Chapter 13: Will Your Trustee Let You Have It?

Posted on December 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

 Guest Post by Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Peter Bricks.

Many people use the tax return system as a pseudo savings account. They count on getting a federal and state refund every year and immediately use all the money to pay for all the necessary home upgrades, car repairs, medical bills, etc.. that they have been waiting to fund all year.

Put those same people as debtors in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and they should consider altering that strategy. For starters, depending on your district, your confirmed plan probably requires you to turn over your tax refund to your bankruptcy trustee.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the debtor will not get his/her refund, just that it’s no guarantee and might require a motion for the court’s approval to retain the tax refund. (Note that, in the Eastern District of Michigan, tax refunds ARE required to be turned over to Chapter 13 Trustees for the life of a Chapter 13 Plan. – JMH)

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Posted in Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Michigan, Tax debt, Tax Returns and Bankruptcy

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What Is the Value of my Small Business in Bankruptcy?

Posted on July 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

A business owned by an individual filing for bankruptcy is property that must be valued, listed, and exempted (protected) in the bankruptcy the same as any other piece of property owned by that individual. If the business is incorporated, it is a separate legal entity that may or may not be filing bankruptcy along with its owner’s personal bankruptcy, but, regardless, it is an item of some potential value that must be accounted for as an aggregate concern in the individual’s personal bankruptcy.

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Posted in Business Debt, Businesses in Bankrutpcy, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Personal Property in Bankruptcy, Property

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Is Social Security “Income” in Bankruptcy?

Posted on June 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

Social Security benefits, both age benefits and disability benefits, are and also are NOT considered “income” within the bankruptcy process in a couple of different ways.

Income is considered in the bankruptcy process both as a measure of a debtor’s eligibility for Chapter 7 (as opposed to Chapter 13) bankruptcy and as a measure of the debtor’s ability to repay creditors some portion of the debt owed to them on monthly average basis.

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Posted in Bankruptcy Laws, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Income, Means Test, Michigan, Uncategorized

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Do I Have to Take A Credit Counseling Course I Have To Take Before Filing Bankruptcy?

Posted on June 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

One of the “innovations” of the 2005 BAPCPA “bankruptcy reform” that Congress enacted was a requirement to take not one but two “credit counseling” courses along with the filing of a bankruptcy petition. The first of these courses is a pre-filing credit-counseling course, and the second is a post-filing “debtor education” course. Both courses may be taken in person, online, or by phone, and they allegedly provide the service of informing the prospective bankruptcy filer of some of the basics of financial and debt management that they might not have been aware of prior to reaching that stage. The two classes have been a mandatory requirement of the bankruptcy process since 2005. The certificate of completion of the first, pre-filing course must be attached to the bankruptcy petition when it is filed.

What these classes actually do is simple, however: they cost you a little more money, and they comprise one more hoop to jump through on your way to achieving a legal discharge of your debts through bankruptcy. They will waste a little of your time and, most likely, provide little to no information to you that is actually in any way useful. What I tell my clients in the Detroit, Michigan area when they ask me what they will hear in the bankruptcy course is that they will hear the sorts of things that Congressmen and Senators of a certain political inclination to believe that anyone who files bankruptcy is somehow immoral or cheating the system thinks that people of that sort ought to hear. In other words, obviousness peppered with a little condescension.

The classes usually only take 20-30 minutes of your time (although I have had a couple of clients report that the post-filing debtor education course took them up to 1.5 hours), and the high end of the costs for the classes is around $50 each. It is not a terrible burden. There are a number of companies that provide these courses, and some of them are better than others in that they quickly provide the certificate of completion to the participants’ attorneys and in that they are more or less likely to provide pseudo-legal advice to participants that is more rightfully delivered by actual attorneys. Many attorneys recommend one provider over another, as I do myself, but, always, you are free to choose your own provider, so long as the certificates of completion are delivered to your attorney in a timely manner.

None of my clients have reported actually enjoying these courses, and I don’t blame them. I do hear a healthy amount of complaining about the requirement, especially from those who have filed for bankruptcy before, prior to 2005—but a requirement it is. It is best to understand beforehand that this is one of the requirements of current bankruptcy law and to just get it over with with a reasonable amount of good humor and courtesy to the company providing the course.

If you are a resident of the Detroit, Michigan or larger southeast Michigan area and are considering filing for bankruptcy, please contact me at jhilla@aronofflinnell.com or (248) 977-4182 to schedule a free, initial consultation.

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Posted in Bankruptcy Basics, Bankruptcy Laws, Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Credit Counseling Course, What Do I Need to File?

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Will Filing Bankruptcy Hurt My Immigration Status?

Posted on April 26, 2010 | 2 Comments

As a bankruptcy attorney in the Detroit, Michigan area, which is home to an extremely diverse immigrant community, this is a question I am asked often.  The good news is that there is no hard and fast rule existing in US immigration law or in the N-400 Application for Naturalization. Although I concentrate my practice on bankruptcy and criminal work and not at all on immigration law, Miami immigration attorney Michael Shane addresses the immigration law end of this question very nicely in his article posted here.

In short, Shane says that no question is asked on the N-400 as to applicant’s bankruptcy filing status, nor is there any law or statute requiring that this inquiry be made throughout the naturalization process. There is a question on the N-400 asking whether an applicant has failed to file an income tax return or owes any unpaid taxes, however, and it is possible that a “Yes” answer to this question will result in the need for an explanation as to why. A bankruptcy may end up the topic of the conversation in this manner. As Shane correctly points out, however, the mere fact that an applicant has filed bankruptcy does not mean that unpaid taxes or a failed return filing is implicated: there are many reasons why people file for bankruptcy, and unpaid taxes are by far not the most common cause.

Shane does mention the possibility, however, that a bankruptcy filing in a naturalization applicant’s history could conceivably be considered “poor moral character” if filed within the 5 years immediately preceding the N-400 application if the bankruptcy petition evidences behavior such as a failure to make child support payments and other individual acts that are, by statute, considered to be evidence of poor moral character.

If you are in the Detroit, Michigan area and are considering filing for bankruptcy and are concerned about its impact on your immigration and naturalization status, it would certainly be wise to consult an experienced immigration attorney as well as contacting me at jhilla@aronofflinnell.com or (248) 977-4182 to schedule a free, initial consultation.

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Posted in Bankruptcy Planning, Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Child-Support, Immigration Status and Bankruptcy, Michigan

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Michigan Bankruptcy Lawyer: Best of the Bankruptcy Basics

Posted on July 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

I began this blog only last December, and, although six months is not a lot of time to assess the effectiveness of anything, one thing that has become clear to me is the number of people interested in very basic information about bankruptcy. The ground-level hows and whys and whens remain a mystery to many people, despite the huge amount of information about bankruptcy available on the internet and elsewhere. The posts I’ve written here that address some of these basic questions are among the most-viewed, far exceeding the readership of my posts addressing very specific issues within the framework of bankruptcy.

Therefore, for the benefit of any new readers who may stumble upon this blog, I’d like to take the opportunity, to point toward some of my previous posts that have touched upon the very basic basics of bankruptcy. Wondering where to get started? Try reading these first, below, first.

Still have questions? please contact me at jhilla@aronofflinnell.com or (248) 977-4182 to schedule a free, initial consultation. I’d be happy to sit down and help you decide whether bankruptcy is a viable solution for you.

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Posted in Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Basics, Bankruptcy Planning, Bankruptcy Process, Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Michigan, Uncategorized

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What Happens to my Reverse Mortgage if I File Bankruptcy?

Posted on May 25, 2009 | 2 Comments

Real estate subject to a “reverse-mortgage” is valued the same way that real estate subject to other sorts of mortgages are for purposes of bankruptcy. Both an “ordinary” mortgage and a reverse-mortgage are liens against the value of the property that will affect the determination of whether the owner of the property actually has any equity in it or not. In this manner, there is no difference between the two types of liens, and a determination that a debtor has no equity in his or her real estate governs the options available for retaining the property through bankruptcy.

The difference between the two lies not in valuation of the property but in the chief benefit that consumers look to reverse-mortgages to receive: a line of credit.  Typically, in the most common reverse-mortgage situation, a homeowner meeting certain criteria assigns a future interest in the full value of the real estate—their home, generally—in exchange for a line of credit which pays out a set amount per month for an allotted period of time, which, in many cases, particularly with regard to elderly consumers, may be the remainder of the consumer’s life. It is a means for a consumer living on limited income, often, to increase their monthly standard of living without losing the benefit of the roof over their heads—at least, when it works as advertised (I won’t comment further here about when this is or isn’t the case).

When that same consumer, however, runs into other trouble and needs to file for personal bankruptcy, the sticking-point for debtors with real estate subject to a lien that is a result of a “reverse-mortgage” is whether or not the finance company providing the reverse-mortgage will continue to provide the line of credit to the consumer under the terms of the original reverse-mortgage agreement. Whether or not this is the case is determined by a wide variety of factors, such as the amount of credit remaining in the line of credit, the business strategy of the finance company when confronted by such situations, as well as others.

If you have a reverse-mortgage and are considering filing for bankruptcy, please contact me at jhilla@aronofflinnell.com or (248) 977-4182 to schedule a free, initial consultation. Together, we can work to find the best solution to your immediate difficulties.

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Posted in Chapter 13, Chapter 7, Home Mortgages and Bankruptcy, Uncategorized

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