Bankruptcy Blog Archives

Tenancy by the Entirety Simply Defined Not to be confused with Joint Tenancy and Tenancy in Common, Tenancy by the Entirety is a relatively new legal concept in property law. Simply defined, Tenancy by the Entirety is a legal form of ownership of certain assets between a husband and wife. In a tenancy by the [...]

The Set UP One of yesterday’s news headlines was “California to Run Out of Cash Without Any Action.” This past few years, we have been seeing these types of news headlines in states all across the nation. Does this type irresponsible actions by our states and local government place the entities alongside all the other [...]

Personal Bankruptcy Story This personal bankruptcy question came from a Californian who shared their personal bankruptcy story on a bankruptcy forum website today: “I live in and work in California, my house is underwater, a HELOC loan is now requiring us to pay principal this month and (our mortgage) bank which now owns the house [...]

The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies is a journal published on behalf of The Society of Empirical Legal Studies and Cornell University Law School. An article entitled Race, Attorney Influence, and Bankruptcy Chapter Choice was posted in the Journal on January 20, 2012. It was written by Robert M. Lawless, a law professor at the [...]

Bankruptcy codes are not the same throughout the world. As a matter of fact, bankruptcy law is not even the same throughout the United States. Although the bankruptcy codes are primarily federal laws in the United States, state bankruptcy statutes are allowed to mange the details within the federal bankruptcy law system. Here is a [...]

A Recent Bankruptcy News Story According to recent news sources, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection last week. By filing, Kodak is seeking to increase its cash position in order to stay in business. In anticipation of filing the Chapter 11, Kodak borrowed $950 million from Citigroup this past Thursday to pay for operations during [...]

SLAPP Defined According to Wikipedia, SLAPP is an acronym for a strategic lawsuit for public participation. The lawsuit is purportedly “intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. The typical plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit.” [...]

  This question was posed by a debtor who was coming to the end of filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2011: “So I received a discharge in October and I have been paying my mortgage through the phone. Last time I paid I asked when I would be able to start paying online and [...]

Old News As a followup to the news blog I posted on January 17, 2012 entitled, Lawsuits Ease on Credit Card Debt, new details may have surfaced that will shed light on the now scandalous actions of the big credit card and mortgage banks like JPMorgan Chase. At the time of the posted blog, Chase [...]

A Real Life Question Concerning an Inheritance Windfall A windfall is a type of gain in income that is unexpected. The key word here is “unexpected.” Bankruptcy law is full of little nuances like these type of key words. All law is full of little nuances for that matter, but what are your legal obligations [...]