I expect clients to conflate themselves and their wholly owned business corporation; I didn’t expect the new bankruptcy lawyer to treat the corporation as if it didn’t exist. Yet as I reviewed a B-22 for a rookie bankruptcy lawyer, I found all of the corporation’s gross income included in the means test for the individual […]
Means Test & The Exemption See-Saw
What can my client do with non exempt cash or readily saleable items not protected by an exemption, the newbie asked. As I looked down my list of things to do with excess cash, I saw an issue I hadn’t explored before: some of best ways to use up non exempt cash may result in […]
Means Test Income And The Annual Bonus
The means test can be seen as a simple form in your bankruptcy petition preparation package – a glorified Form 1040 to be filed with each consumer case – or we can view it as it truly is. The simple becomes hazy, and what we knew coming into this aspect of our practice is persistently […]
Clients, Competence & Perjury
The schedules are signed under penalty of perjury. Just for certainty, let me say it again: your client signs the schedules under penalty of perjury. My partner reported a scene from a 341 meeting she attended while I was on vacation: the case ahead of ours sported a schedule J that was blank, while the […]
Counting to 90
This week I have apparently discovered bankruptcy lawyers who can’t count to 90. Amazing, isn’t it? Yet I’ve reviewed two cases where counsel failed to file the case such that judgment liens fell within the 90 day preference period. And these were cases where the liens had six figure totals and the debtor had assets. […]
Primer on Reaffirmation Agreements
Every Chapter 7 case with a car loan presents a reaffirmation dilemma. Should the client reaffirm? Should you certify “no hardship”? What happens if the judge rejects the agreement? Dallas bankruptcy judge Stacey Jernigan laid out a primer for attorneys on how it’s done and what judges in her district expect from bankruptcy practitioners in […]
Means Test: Encouraged to Screw Up
With the influx of new personnel at the trustee’s office, I’m seeing more flat wrong objections from the trustee’s office to means test issues. One consistent theme is the assertion that the expense deducted is measured by the past six months. Balderdash. Even after BAPCPA, the means test is a tool for measuring projected disposable […]
