Illinois Bankruptcy Lawyer Blog

May 23, 2013 Write-Downs and Recovery in Illinois Chances are that any equity you had in your home disappeared between 2008 and 2011 and hasn't been seen since. What will happen in 2013? One thing for sure though: if a write-down is not an option many people will find themselves looking to programs like HAMP and HARP to manage their payments, and others will find that Chapter 13 Reorganization is the most expedient way to go.

May 17, 2013 To Strip or Not to Strip... That Is The Question Yes Virginia, it is possible to both discharge unsecured debts forever (Chapter 7) and strip down secondary mortgages (Chapter 13). But why would a Debtor file two cases when it's hard enough to put themselves through one? Read on and find out.

May 14, 2013 Citation Showdown: Why Debtors Should File Fast Debtors should address debts well before creditors obtain judgments and file citations to discover assets. If they don't, they could end paying both their most aggressive creditors and the Trustee in a double-whammy.

May 9, 2013 A Creditor's Best Bet: Payments In The Ordinary Course Your customer or borrower has been paying like clockwork and you, the creditor or vendor, have been dispensing goods and services as promised. Then your customer starts to pay a little later, then later still. Why not? Times are tough. So you do the decent thing and take their payments without complaining. Next thing you know, your customer seeks bankruptcy protection, leaving you holding the bag for thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods and services. Money you'll never see again.

March 27, 2013 In re Romious - Death, Taxes, and the Automatic Stay What happens when the property taxes of a Chapter 13 Debtor, protected by the Automatic Stay, are sold at auction? Here the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, had to decide whether a Chapter 13 Plan of Reorganization affects the deadline for the Debtor to redeem sold taxes. The answer is, Yes. Who says tax sales + bankruptcy doesn't = fun?

March 7, 2013 Beating Bankruptcy: A Small Business Survival Guide Small business remains the backbone of the most vibrant economy in the world. America leads in innovation and hard work thanks in large part to small businesses and their owners. But in lean times, business owners need to know they have options. This post is about those options.