The bankruptcy means test, designed to keep people out of bankruptcy, has a fatal weakness. Like so much recently, it’s health care. Health care, in the future, to be paid before creditors get any money. It works because, in a logic that only Congress could employ, the means test deducts future expenses from past income. And, since […]
Recover The House AFTER The Foreclosure Under New California Law
The signal changes in California foreclosure law in 2021 are bearing unexpected fruit: a bankruptcy filing AFTER the foreclosure auction can save the house for the homeowner. Under CC 2924m, instead of the foreclosure sale being final at the drop of the auction hammer, now the sale is not final, and the trustee’s deed not […]
The Neglected Non-dischargeability Provision
Hands up, everyone who has encountered a claim that a debt is non-dischargeable by reason of ยง523(a)(14). That’s what I thought: nada, or next thing to it. Despite watching for it, I hadn’t seen one til this year when AmEx filed an adversary in a case in which I was peripherally involved. My copy of […]
Bankruptcy Law Trumps State Protection For Judgment Lien
State law insulated a recorded judgment lien from future increases in the homestead exemption. However, bankruptcy law trumps that limitation, says the 9th Circuit in Barclay v. Boskoski. [T]he Bankruptcy Code requires courts to determine the amount of the exemption to whichthe debtor would have been entitled in the absence of the lien at issue […]
