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2 roommates + 2 incomes
In re Bostwick, 2009 WL 1788046 (Bky.D.Minn. June 23, 2009)
Sounds like sanity could be returning to the Bankruptcy system, but you be the judge. As reported in this piece by Attorney Craig Andresen for the Bankruptcy Law Network, a court in Minnesota has ruled that unrelated roommates living in the same house or appartment constitute a “2-person household’ while at the same time not taking the roommate’s income into account when it came to the debtor’s Means Test. In other words, a debtor living with a roommate in Minnesota can make more money than his neighbor in Wisconsin or Illinois and still file Chapter 7 (or finish Chapter 13 in 3 years instead of 5). It’s actually an interesting and perfectly logical way to look at things – take a look and see if you don’t agree. The alternative can be downright ridiculous; just ask any consumer bankruptcy lawyer frustrated by the system (hint: that’s everyone …). [read the full article]
Categories: BAPCPA · Blogroll · Census Bureau · aoc · article · bankruptcy · blogging · blogs · case update · ch 13 · ch 7 · consumer · current-events · income · individual · means test · median income
On March 30 Congress made it official. H.R. 200, the “Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy” Act of 2009 was put down once and for all by a narrow margin in the Senate.
Pity. It turns out the Act would have gone a long way towards leveling a very uneven playing field. You can read about some of the (relatively) radical aspects of the bill in this summary from govtrack.us.
Now for the last time, stop fantasizing that the Federal Government is going to save your house and just hire a bankruptcy lawyer already.
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Tagged: Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy, HR 200
Bankruptcy's Back
From MSN Money By Liz Pulliam Weston
It looks as if last year’s reform law did not really stem the enormous flood of bankruptcies after all. Here are the states with the highest bankruptcy rates. advertisement By Liz Pulliam Weston The lull in bankruptcy filings may already be a thing of the past. Consumer bankruptcy cases plunged to a 20-year low in the first three months of 2006, reflecting the passage of a tough new bankruptcy law last year. But the pace of new filings is already on the rise. Courts now see an average of 2,000 new filings a day — four times the number that were filed in November 2005 after the bankruptcy law went into effect, according to Chris Lundquist, founder of Lundquist Consulting, which tracks bankruptcy trends. If filings continue to rise at anything like this rate — which is not a given, but certainly a possibility — we could see close to 1 million filings by the end of the year. That would still be significantly less than the record filing levels that drove passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. But it would be a pretty clear indication that the bankruptcy juggernaut was just stalled, not cured, by the new law. [read the full piece]
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October 19, 2008 · 1 Comment
By Susanne Robicsek, North Carolina Bankruptcy Attorney
Short sales are being pushed as a win-win situation since the bank gets something, and the homeowner avoids foreclosure. To me it looks like a lose-lose-lose situation. Short sales hurt the mortgage company who loses money. The homeowner loses their home. Families that live around the property lose value in their homes since short sales and foreclosure drive down the values of the homes around it. This hurts families who did everything right, but are still pulled into a situation where they are also underwater on their home. Short sales are not going to stop the spiral of foreclosures that have contributed to the mortgage crisis, and although they might make sense for a particular property owner they can create their own problems.
1 in 6 homeowners, or nearly 12 million homeowners, are upside down on their mortgages. Experts believe that this number will climb to over 15 million in a year, and this figure could be higher if house prices continue to fall. This was reported in a story on ABC News Nightline on October 17, 2008 on the mortgage crisis. The story was on mortgages that were upside down or underwater, meaning that the house was worth more than what is owed. [full article]
Ed. Note – thanks to Jay Fleischman for the heads up on this article
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Charles Dharapak/AP by Alex Johnson of MSNBC
President Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 in the Oval Office after the House passed the financial bailout bill Friday.
Pelosi: Bill brings order to chaos
Oct. 10: House Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer describe improvements in the bailout bill.
Blunt: Revised finance bill protects taxpayers
Oct. 3: House Minority Whip Roy Blunt says that the finance bill that was passed by the House contains provisions that “virtually ensures” taxpayers won’t lose money.
President Bush signed into law Friday a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, promising to move swiftly to use his sweeping new authority to unlock frozen credit markets to get the economy moving again.
“It’s complicated, and we’re going to make sure whatever we do is done in a deliberative fashion,” Bush told reporters after he signed the bill as soon as he got it from the House, which passed the measure after a topsy-turvy week of legislative victories, defeats and power plays.
But he promised to get the ball rolling quickly, because the authority is “essential to helping Ameica’s economy weather the financial crisis.” [read the rest of the story]
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