Archives for July 2016

  This is the bankruptcy case study for Michael M., who resides in Aurora, DuPage County, Illinois. Michael is currently being garnished for a hospital bill and is seeking protection under the bankruptcy code. He is inquiring as to whether or not he can file a Chapter 7 to stop the garnishment and yet keep all of his personal property free from the trustees reach. He did file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case more than 10 years ago and that case failed. He simply was unable to make monthly payments on a consistent basis. In this effort, he does not feel he has the ability to make monthly payments. For that reason, in addition to the current garnishment, he needs the help of a + Read More

Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases are difficult for the debtor as well as the attorney. The debtor has to fulfill a series of requirements prior to filing as well as additional requirements subsequent to filing. The attorney does the bulk of his work upfront and fights to get paid as the case progresses. In recent weeks, it was discovered that a particular chapter 13 trustee in Chicago waits to pay the attorney fee for longer than was expected.  He denied this practice.  However, his staff has put in writing said practice and states that this is how it has always been done. This has caused the loss of fees as well as set payments being made to secured creditors in advance of attorney's + Read More

  There are five major areas of concern when considering filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.   1) The first concern is the type of debt. There are certain debts that can be eliminated in a Chapter 13 at less than 100% payback. There are other debts that cannot be eliminated and must be paid back in full through the plan. Thus, the first consideration that an attorney must look at is the type of debt that a client has.  In many cases, most of the debt can be easily compromised. I'm referring to parking tickets, credit cards, medical bills, unsecured loans, utility bills and most debts for services rendered. On the other hand, we do run across cases where the outstanding debt is + Read More

A Chapter 13 debtor filed for bankruptcy on September 11, 2014. Within the Chapter 13 case, he planned on repaying approximately $4,700 worth of parking tickets owed to the city of Chicago. The proposed plan was going to pay back approximately 10% to 20% of those parking tickets over a 3 to 5 year term. Everything was going smoothly for the debtor until the time that he received a notice from the city of Chicago. It appears that subsequent to the filing date of September 11, 2014, the debtor, or somebody driving the debtor's vehicle, incurred parking tickets owed to the city of Chicago. The total outstanding debt, which was all incurred after the original filing date, totaled approximately + Read More