Credit bureauMany of my clients express concern over their ability to obtain credit and take out loans after they have gone through a bankruptcy.  I have written in great detail about the topic, and included tips on rebuilding credit after bankruptcy, so I won’t rehash it here.

Instead, I suggest that if you have gone through a bankruptcy, and are in the process of using my tips for rebuilding credit, you get your credit reports each year and review them for errors.  You can do so at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/.

When you go to the site, focus on the credit reports rather than on any ads that may pop up.  After all, the point is to see what’s going on with your credit, not to purchase goods and services you probably don’t need.

As you review the reports, keep in mind that the reporting bureaus rely on your creditors, and not on you, for their information.  Therefore, if a creditor has sent erroneous data the report will contain errors.  These errors can be fixed.
Continue Reading Post-Bankruptcy Credit Reports

Cartoon of man with billA very recent Eleventh Circuit decision, Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, No. 13-12389 (11th Cir., July 10, 2014), highlights an interesting split among the circuits, which makes things ripe for an appeal to the Supremes.

First let’s get a little background.

BACKGROUND

I.                The Automatic Stay And The Discharge Injunction

When a person files for bankruptcy protection, the automatic stay is triggered.  The stay prevents creditors from taking action against the debtor, the debtor’s possessions, and the bankruptcy estate that is created upon filing.  I have written about the automatic stay in many previous posts, so I won’t spend a lot of time exploring it here.

[T]he stay . . . continues until the earliest of —

(A) the time the case is closed;

(B) the time the case is dismissed; or

(C) if the case is a case under chapter 7 of this title concerning an individual or a case under chapter 9, 11, 12, or 13 of this title, the time a discharge is granted or denied.

11 U.S.C. § 362(c) (2).

If the debtor receives a discharge, then once the stay terminates it is replaced by the permanent discharge injunction of 11 U.S.C.  § 524(a), that forever prohibits creditors from attempting to collect discharged debts.

II.              The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

The Bankruptcy Code is federal law, made pursuant to Congress’s enumerated power “to establish . . . uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.”  U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 4.  It affords debtors marvelous protections — including the automatic stay and the discharge injunction — against the depredations of their creditors.

Another federal law that protects debtors, in this case from debt collectors, is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) found in 15 U.S. Code § 1692, et seq.  The FDCPA contains significant limitations on what a debt collector can do.  By the way, the limitations here are not on the creditor, just on the collector.

III.            The Doctrine Of Federal Preemption

The U.S. Constitution contains the following provision:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

U.S. Const., art. VI, para. 2.

This means that federal laws are binding on everyone.  Thus, if there is a conflict between a federal statute and a state statute, the federal statute always wins.  This is sometimes referred to as the doctrine of federal preemption.

But notice what the Constitution does not say.  It does not say anything about the relationship between two federal statutes.  Therefore, if there were an inconsistency between two federal statutes, there is no formula for determining which statute controls.  And if there were no conflict between two federal statutes, there is no indication that one should be preferred above the other.

IV.            The Ninth Circuit’s Walls Decision

In 2002 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in Walls v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 276 F. 3d 502 (9th Cir. 2002), that has created a problem for Ninth Circuit practitioners.
Continue Reading Fair Debt Collection Practices Act And Bankruptcy

Home equityLast Sunday, July 20, 2014, Liz Weston of the L.A. Times gave an interesting answer to a question posed by a reader of the newspaper’s Money Talk feature.  Today’s post adds to Liz’s advice.

The reader had accumulated $28,000 in credit card debt over the previous eight years, and had considerable law school debt and a home mortgage.  He wanted to know whether a home equity loan was a smart choice to solve his problems.

Liz gave a good answer, but the LA Times’ space constraints made it impossible for her to cover things in detail.  Her response included the statement:  “Bankruptcy probably isn’t in the cards for you, of course, given your resources.”  This led me to today’s post.

But first, a caveat:  In order to give the reader an accurate analysis of the application of bankruptcy to his problems, I would need a lot more information.  Thus, what I am about to say focuses on general principles, and is not a substitute for a thorough evaluation of the case using detailed documentation.

I.              Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

I suspect that Liz had Chapter 7 bankruptcy in mind when she made her comment.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the debtor’s dischargeable debts are discharged without the creditors getting anything.  Since this is such a big hit on the creditors, there are some limitations.  One such limitation is on what the debtor gets to keep.  The debtor keeps exempt assets,  but the Chapter 7 Trustee assigned to the case seizes and liquidates the nonexempt assets for the benefit of the creditors.

Given that the reader has enough equity that he was considering a home equity line of credit (“HELOC”), it may be that he has too much equity to fully exempt.  If that is the case, then a Chapter 7 bankruptcy might be a poor choice since he and his wife would lose their home to the depredations of the Chapter 7 Trustee assigned to the case.  Again, more detailed information about his assets and encumbrances against them are needed to say for sure.

However, two other chapters of the Bankruptcy Code may be worth considering because debtors filing bankruptcies under those chapters can keep their assets regardless of their value or exempt status.
Continue Reading Comment On Liz Weston’s Column: Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Is An Option

Last will and testamentIf you become entitled to receive an inheritance during the pendency of your Chapter 13 bankruptcy, can you disclaim all or part of it?  That was the subject of a few questions that a fellow bankruptcy attorney recently asked me.  I found the exchange interesting, so I am posting it for your edification.

Question 1:

HomeIf you sell your home, can the cash proceeds be exempted using the homeowner’s equity exemption?  That was the subject of two questions that a fellow bankruptcy attorney recently asked me.  I found the exchange interesting, so I am posting it for your edification.

Question 1:

If the proceeds from the sale of the domicile are held in escrow or my client trust account — and the Debtor is required to seek further court approval before being allowed to touch them, would that mean the Debtor never “actually received” them in the sense of Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.720, so that the statutory time did not begin to run?

I.          Exempt Status If Debtor Did Not Have Immediate Access To The Proceeds

We first turn to the statute (with emphasis added):

If a homestead is sold . . . the proceeds of sale . . . are exempt in the amount of the homestead exemption provided in Section 704.730.  The proceeds are exempt for a period of six months after the time the proceeds are actually received by the judgment debtor, except that, if a homestead exemption is applied to other property of the judgment debtor or the judgment debtor’s spouse during that period, the proceeds thereafter are not exempt.

Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.720(b).

Based on this language, the California Supreme Court’s holding in Thorsby v. Babcock, 36 Cal. 2d 202 (Cal. 1950) answers the question.

Babcock was the judgment debtor in this case, and Thorsby was the judgment creditor.  Babcock sold his home on which he had a homestead exemption.  However, due to the litigation with Thorsby the sale proceeds were placed in an escrow account for eight months.  Thus, Babcock didn’t have access to the sale proceeds for eight months, so he couldn’t reinvest the proceeds in a new domicile during the six-month postsale period.  Thorsby challenged the legitimacy of the exemption based on the fact that the proceeds hadn’t been reinvested in a domicile during the six-month postsale period.
Continue Reading Homestead Exemption After Sale Of The Residence

small pile of penniesHere is the eighth defense against preference avoidance actions, the so-called de minimis transfer defense.  This defense has two versions.

Defenses To Preference Avoidance Actions, Part VIII:

The De Minimis Transfer Defense

A.        The De Minimis Transfer Defense, Part I

Suppose an individual with primarily consumer debt files a personal bankruptcy.  And suppose that debtor

Here is the sixth defense against preference avoidance actions, the so-called domestic support defense.  This one is short.

Defenses To Preference Avoidance Actions, Part VII:

The Domestic Support Defense

A comparison of the Bankruptcy Code prior to October 17, 2005 with its current incarnation (the 2005 law that changed the Code is the Bankruptcy Abuse

Man reading legal docsHere is the sixth defense against preference avoidance actions, the so-called statutory lien defense.

Defenses To Preference Avoidance Actions, Part VI:

The Statutory Lien Defense

Some liens are voluntary, the result of the debtor voluntarily granting a lien to a creditor.  Examples include home mortgages and car loans.

Other liens are involuntary and are recorded against the debtor’s wishes.  For example, if a creditor obtains a judgment against the debtor, the creditor can record a judgment lien against an asset — such as the debtor’s home.

Another type of involuntary lien is a statutory lien, which is a lien that arises by operation of some statute.  For example, if a homeowner is behind on homeowners association dues, the HOA can record a lien pursuant to a statute.  See, e.g., Cal. Civ. Code § 1367.1.  Statutory liens are the focus of § 547(c)(6):  “The trustee may not avoid under this section a transfer — . . . that is the fixing of a statutory lien that is not avoidable under section 545 of this title.”  Thus, if the statutory lien is not avoidable under § 545, it is not avoidable.  (One of the challenges in understanding statutes is having to follow chains of references from one part of the statute to another.  This is one of those challenges.)

Section 545 provides:
Continue Reading Preferential Transfers IV: Defenses To Preference Avoidance Actions (Part VI)

Floating Lien Defense does not actually float on waterHere is the fifth defense against preference avoidance actions, the so-called floating lien defense.

Defenses To Preference Avoidance Actions, Part V:

The Floating Lien Defense

In my last post I discussed the security interest defense, and noted that § 547(c)(3) requires that the security agreement must clearly identify the collateral securing the debt.  The example that set the stage for the discussion of § 547(c)(3) was of the purchase of a car.  The debtor took possession of the car and at the same time transferred a security interest in the car to the creditor.  Thus, the debtor had the car at the time of the transfer.

However, a lien can be created even before the debtor has the collateral, or even before the collateral comes into existence.  Such a lien is called a floating lien.

For example, suppose the debtor is a business that  regularly purchases widgets from a supplier, and then resells them at its retail outlets.  The parties can create a lien that specifies that all future deliveries of widgets become collateral securing a floating debt the debtor has to the supplier.  As the inventory is sold, the debt is paid from the proceeds, with the unsold inventory serving as collateral for the unpaid portion of the debt.
Continue Reading Preferential Transfers IV: Defenses to Preference Avoidance Actions (Part V)