-Conducting the client meeting
-Deciding whether Bankruptcy is the proper option for your client
-Evaluating which Chapter to file for Bankruptcy under
-Satisfying the attorney’s responsibilities
-Satisfying the “means” test
-Ethical issues

The reason BLPs work is that the bank caps the interest rate based on its calculation of the maximum the debtor can pay without defaulting. Usually they range between zero and 12 percent. Without the interest rate reduction, the debt would probably balloon forever. Another benefit they give debtors is their status on credit reports. The credit accounts are listed as “closed” rather than delinquent due to the lower monthly payments. BLPs’ payment periods vary based on the outstanding amount owed, but they can last as long as five years.

There are drawbacks to BLPs, however. One, many debtors owe money on multiple credit cards, which makes arranging numerous BLPs a hassle. Banks’ terms will differ, and some might not offer BLPs. As a result, many people are probably better off consolidating their credit card debt into one account and then paying it off.

Two, BLPs often take more time and money than they are worth. Debtors who have a small debt problem are better off consolidating and paying it down, and people who have high amounts of debt are probably going to lose their income sources before they successfully pay down the BLP anyway. If a default is likely then there’s no reason to delay a Chapter 7 bankruptcy with a BLP. The benefits of having the “closed account” on a credit report aren’t very high given that a Chapter 7 bankruptcy stays on the report for only 10 years. It’s not that much longer than a BLP, and the bank gets nothing.

Thus, there are times when a balance liquidation plan is worthwhile, such as those who have small credit card debts or who have just lost an income stream, but for the most part, filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a better tool at clearing credit card debt.

For answers to more questions about credit card debt, bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

Things aren’t good in the world of private student loan servicing. In the six-month period starting in March 2012, the CFPB received 3,000 complaints from debtors. The report admits that they are not a representative sample of the 850,000 private student loans Americans owe money on.

Nevertheless, the ombudsman’s report breaks them up according to the issues debtors had with their servicers, starting with sixty-five percent of the complaints by debtors who were having difficulties repaying their loans. Here’s how the CFPB divided them:

• “Inability to speak with personnel empowered to negotiate a repayment plan”
• “Inability to refinance”
• “Inability to access repayment plans previously advertised”
• “‘Good faith’ partial payments leading to default” – Even after paying more than 50 percent of their discretionary incomes, many debtors were forced into default anyway.

Another 30 percent of complaints dealt with consequences of being unable to repay their loans. These complaints include “Bankruptcy-triggered defaults,” which occurs when loan terms state that if a debtor files bankruptcy the loan is automatically declared in default. Others complained that their creditor took money out of their checking accounts to pay for their loans, even to the point of overdrafting them. Finally, many people complained that their loan servicers refused to release co-signers for frivolous reasons.

The CFPB classified the remaining five percent of the complaints as issues related to obtaining a student loan, such as “confusing terms” and “sales tactics or pressure.”

As of now, there is only $150 billion in outstanding private student loans, but all the complaints went to only seven loan servicers, a list that unsurprisingly finds Sallie Mae at the top. If you have trouble paying your private student loans, then discussing your situation with a New York bankruptcy lawyer can help you figure out what your options are, including filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

For answers to more questions about private student loans, bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

Most often, repo men come for vehicles. Cars often secure the loans taken out to pay them, and usually they’re worth something to the bank. That said, there are some nonviolent options for stalling the repo men so you can keep your vehicle. For one, it’s important to know the powers repo men have and do not have. Repo men aren’t police, nor are they agents of the police. They cannot commit crimes against you or your property, which includes things like executing warrants or trespassing on your property beyond what’s reasonably necessary to repossess the property. If they do anything like that, including breaking locks or things like that, they have committed crimes, and you should call the police. This won’t necessarily result in you getting your property back, but it will ensure that the repo men don’t act above the law.

One tip, then, is to keep your car locked in your garage. Of course, you won’t be able to use it, but it does buy you time until you can reach an agreement with your bank. If you do leave with the car, or if you store it in an accessible garage, then the repo agents can take the vehicle. Keeping the car at home might help if you don’t want to be left in the parking lot with a cart full of groceries without a car.

Aside from that, the bankruptcy code does afford car owners options for dealing with their vehicles. First, the automatic stay halts repossessions, but this is a temporary measure. Those who file in Chapter 7 can redeem their vehicles from the lender by paying a lump-sum price based on the market value of the vehicle. People filing in Chapter 13 can “cram down” the value of the vehicle if it’s more than 910 days old. A Cram down reduces the auto loan’s value to the car’s current value, and it reduces the interest rate on the loan as well. The Chapter 13 option can save debtors quite a bit of money—and their cars.

So if you are having trouble making payments on a vehicle and it looks like the bank is about to repossess it, talk to a bankruptcy lawyer instead of becoming an article in the Repo Times.

For answers to more questions about cars, auto repossession, bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

It’s a bizarre yet fascinating story about underwater homeownership with a twist. However, Cote made a series of mistakes that he wouldn’t have made had he hired a competent bankruptcy attorney. First of all, not having a plan to handle the underwater mortgage before bankruptcy was a catastrophic error. He could have short-sold it, offered the lender the deed in lieu of foreclosure, or even waited until the bank actually initiated foreclosure to try to mediate the dispute. By filing bankruptcy before dealing with the condo, he discharged the mortgage (not the lien on the condo though) but was still liable for tens of thousands of dollars in condominium association fees.

It’s also strange, but not unheard of, for Cote to vacate the residence before the bank began foreclosure proceedings. It happens sometimes that people just walk away before knowing what the bank is willing to offer. This too is a mistake. Maybe he was in a better position than he thought, and an experienced bankruptcy lawyer may have told him that banks don’t like foreclosing on condos because they have to pay condominium association fees either, which is why the bank didn’t take over his residence. Finally, it should go without saying that filing bankruptcy at the time of the foreclosure would have stopped it via the automatic stay.

Jeffrey Cote’s story ends well, despite its weirdness, but New Yorkers might not be so fortunate. If you are living in a residence and are underwater on your mortgage, talk to an experienced New York bankruptcy lawyer instead of just walking away.

For answers to more questions about bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

This is an important point because back in 2005, a law professor at the University of Illinois, Robert Lawless, compared the number of bankruptcy filings from states where a hurricane or tropical storm made landfall to states that were not affected. He limited himself to storms that caused at least $1 billion in damage and occurred between 1980 and 2004. Despite the simplicity of his methodology, his findings were quite clear: In the 24-to-36-month period after a hurricane hit, bankruptcy filings were 50 percent higher than in unaffected states, even after accounting for the general upward trend in bankruptcies over the time period.

Lawless’ primary goal was to reduce the impact of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act would have on Hurricane Katrina victims because he believed the law’s real purpose was to reduce bankruptcies generally. For instance, why would hurricane victims need to meet the credit counseling requirement to show that their bankruptcies weren’t abusive? As a result, homeowners who are affected by Sandy will face a higher likelihood of filing bankruptcy and must clear a number of hurdles to do so nonetheless.

Here are some ways of avoiding that for yourself, keep your home, and afford any damages.

First, take a careful look at your homeowner’s insurance policy. (Hopefully it wasn’t damaged, and if it was, you’ll have to get a copy of it from your insurer.) It will list the situations where the insurance company will protect you from natural disasters and those where it will not. One particular issue that arises is what a “flood” means to you and what it means to the insurance company. Often, policies protect against flooding caused by rainwater but nothing else, like storm surge. According to Reuters, insurers are also throwing in “anti-concurrent causation clauses,” which deny claims when the damage is caused by multiple events including any one uninsured cause.

Next, file the claim as quickly as possible, paying attention to the deadlines included in the policy. It’s usually 60 days for federal flood insurance, which many mortgagees require for those who live near flood-prone coasts. When you do file the claim, simply describe the damage without attributing a cause.

Your homeowner’s insurance policy might not cover everything you wish it did, and you may suffer quite a bit of damage nonetheless. If your insurance doesn’t cover the damage to your home, you are still liable on the mortgage note. At that point, you may need to consider filing bankruptcy.

For answers to more questions about bankruptcy after a natural disaster, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

One, there’s a difference between a foreclosure moratorium and an eviction moratorium. A foreclosure moratorium stops the foreclosure proceeding, which means all the legal procedures lenders must go through to reclaim title to a property, initiate the foreclosure sale, and evict the residents if they are still present. The eviction moratorium that’s going into effect refers only to that process. Whether the residents can maintain their ownership of the property has already been decided.

So, when exactly will eviction procedures resume? For those whose mortgages are held by Freddie Mac, it begins on Monday, December 17, 2012 and goes until Wednesday, January 2. Homeowners whose mortgagee is Fannie Mae, by contrast have from December 19 until January 2, and it only applies to single-family dwellings and two- to four-unit properties. The good news, according to The Huffington Post site, is that the GSEs aren’t the only lenders who are suspending evictions. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are also halting evictions.

What effect this will have, the article doesn’t say. The moratorium probably is more about PR than anything else. It’s unlikely that many families are planning to move into a newly auctioned home in January, so the banks are probably not losing a lot of money on it. Nor does the article say precisely how many evictions will be suspended.

Nevertheless, it’s important to track any mail you get from your mortgage company to see if you are eligible for the moratorium. Even if you are, it’s probably a good idea to use the extra time to remove valuable property and store it at a friend’s or a relative’s place. Anything else that’s replaceable can go to storage facilities. Beyond that, if you are about to be evicted, filing bankruptcy won’t let you keep your home, but if there’s a deficiency on your mortgage, a Chapter 7 filing can clear it.

For answers to more questions about bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

To begin with, New York allows debtors to exempt $1,000 in jewelry, and those who don’t take a homestead exemption can use a $1,000 wildcard exemption on jewelry. The federal exemptions, of which New Yorkers can avail themselves, offer a $1,450 jewelry exemption and up to $10,825 in the leftover homestead exemption. Non-homeowners and homeowners whose mortgages are underwater can use up to $10,825 instead of the homestead exemption and $1,150 in a wildcard exemption.

It’s tempting but do not omit jewelry from your bankruptcy schedules and do not neglect to tell your bankruptcy lawyer about them. If the bankruptcy trustee finds out, you will likely lose the jewelry, and your case might be jeopardized. Instead, have your jewelry appraised by a competent appraiser. You might find that the items are worth more than you thought (or less), just don’t trust what appraisers say about bankruptcy law regarding jewelry. That’s where lawyers are the experts.

The good news is that the situation is probably in your favor. Jewelry is not easy for trustees to liquidate because doing so requires finding interested buyers, and in a depressed economy, there aren’t likely to be many. Trustees prefer things like stocks and bonds, not rocks, and if the exemption took enough of the value away from the trustee, it might not be worth selling at all. The even better news is that debtors have six months to pay for the remaining value of any jewelry after exemptions are taken into account.

Beyond that, it’s true the jewelry exemptions aren’t going to protect large collections. They appear designed to ensure that people won’t lose their wedding rings in bankruptcy. Losing a few pieces pales to the benefits of discharging your debts. Otherwise, jewelry is one of the many reasons to hire an experienced bankruptcy lawyer, especially in New York where debtors need to weigh the benefits of the state versus federal exemptions.

For more questions about jewelry in bankruptcy, exemptions, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.

Whether stipulating to a confidentiality agreement is a good idea depends on what the collector doesn’t want you to discuss. If the debt collector doesn’t want you talking about the fact that you filed the lawsuit at all—even though it’s a matter of public record—it might be worthwhile to pass. The purpose isn’t so much to protect the debt collector from any harm, but instead its goal is to hope that you mess up. If you tell a friend or neighbor, write about your experience in an op-ed, or communicate about the case in some other way, the debt collection company will probably have a pretty decent case against you.

Another goal might be to hamper your lawyer’s practice. By signing this restrictive an agreement, your lawyer won’t be able to use what the debt collector in your case did as an example of what might happen in debt collection cases. Attorney advertising, conferences involving other lawyers, and public engagements would all be off-limits.

The other main type of confidentiality a collector might ask for concerns the amount for which you settled your case. This is more defensible. Yes, your lawyer won’t be able to use that in his or her advertising, but its goals aren’t to entrap you. Rather, it’s trying to ensure that other people don’t think it’s an easy target and will shell out large sums in settlements. You might not care so much about the debt collectors’ future legal problems, but whether you would want to accept this kind of agreement is your call, and probably won’t prejudice you further down the road.

For more questions about bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced Brooklyn bankruptcy attorney Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.