Bankruptcy Chapters

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) is currently lobbying Congress in support of two bills aimed at allowing debtors to discharge private student loans during bankruptcy. Each bill seeks to amend the current federal Bankruptcy Code to allow debtors to discharge student loan debt made by private lenders.  The bills do not affect federal student loans.

Under current law no student loan can be discharged by a bankruptcy court unless there is a finding of undue hardship. The federal courts have interpreted this language very strictly, and very few bankruptcy debtors are able to satisfy the undue hardship standard to discharge student loans.

The NACBA supports changes to the Bankruptcy Code through the Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2011, a bill currently pending in the House of Representatives, or via the Fairness for Struggling Students Act, a similar bill in the Senate. Each bill allows a bankruptcy debtor to discharge student loans from private lenders like banks and Sallie Mae.

Outstanding student loans are a terrible burden on many American households and total over $1 trillion.

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Tags: Bankruptcy Attorneys, Loans, Student Loans

Last week, in negotiations with lawyers for bond insurer Syncora Guarantee, Jefferson County agreed to increase their debt payments. The insurer says their survival is being threatened by the county’s small payments.

Last year, Jefferson County attorneys agreed to pay $5.5 million a month towards their sewer debts. Also, debt payments to the insurer were reduced by $9 million. However, at a bankruptcy court hearing, the two parties agreed to a deal that would increase payments. According to the deal, money left over after covering the sewer system’s maintenance and operations will be returned to the sewer company, which will then distribute debt payments to its bondholders.

To learn more about settling debts through debt negotiations, contact the Birmingham debt negotiation attorney, Paula Greenway, by calling 205-324-4000 today.

Tags: Debt Payments, Jefferson County, Payments

Paper money contains cocaine residue.  Fact.  Don’t rip out your wallet and try to sniff the bills you are carrying.  The amounts are most likely too small.  On the other hand, it may just be enough to grab the attention of those drug-sniffing dogs at the airport.

As mundane as this tidbit of information is, research released in August 2009 by Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, reveals that 90% of the U.S. currency contains cocaine traces.   This doesn’t mean that all the contaminated bills was at one time used by those with a drug problem, nor does it mean that the coke-laced bills were handled by the dope-laden paws of drug dealers.

Most of the money gets contaminated inside the currency-counting machines of banks, casinos and ATMs.  How?  Well, the forced air used in the sorting machine to separate the bills, blows the cocaine, which in its powder form is so fine, that just one bill containing traces of it, spreads onto the entire batch.

The coke traces on your money isn’t enough to cause concern unless you are a bank teller or are in constant contact with the counting machines.  Those in such positions have reason to worry because of the dust being inhaled, could test positive at a drug testing.

Cocaine traces on money isn’t a health risk.  There are far worse things on the money we carry.  A study published in 2002 in the Southern Medical Journal stated that 94% of the paper money tested carried various types of disease causing organisms.  The Federal Reserve tactfully refers to it as “soil content”; they analyze bills and take the extremely dirty money out of circulation.  On average U.S. bills are with us for 18

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Tags: Wallet

Credit cards provide the cheapest means of currency conversion. Hold on, before you balk at this statement and argue that someone working for a credit-oriented blog would of course make such a claim, let me tell you something: I have the facts to back it up. In fact, credit cards have the potential to save international travelers as much as 15% on currency exchange, according to a recent Currency Exchange Study by Card Hub.

Card Hub – using both online fact finding and anonymous phone calls – was able to determine the U.S. dollar-to-Euro exchange rates offered by Visa and MasterCard, the credit card networks with by far the largest coverage areas worldwide; 15 of the largest consumer banks in the United States; and Travelex, the most significant airport currency exchange service in the world. And aside from the mere fact that the payment type most conducive to international travel is a credit card, this study revealed that:

• On average, credit cards without international transaction fees save travelers 14.7% as compared to airport services and 7.9% relative to major banks.
• The best banks for currency conversion are Northern Trust and Harris Bank
• The worst banks for currency conversion are U.S. Ban

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Tags: Card, Credit Card

When filing for bankruptcy protection in Massachusetts, is it necessary to file jointly if you are married? The simple answer is no.

There is no Massachusetts law or federal bankruptcy rule requiring spouses to file jointly. Often one partner has significant debt and the other doesn’t. If John has sizable credit card debt and Suzie has no debt, and John qualifies, there may be no need to file a joint bankruptcy. This would have an unnecessarily bad result on Suzie’s credit, for no reason. But any credit cards that Suzie did have a legal responsibility for, she would continue to be responsible for, notwithstanding John’s bankruptcy and notwithstanding the fact that John may have been the one charging up the card.

However, it is important to meet with an experienced Massachusetts bankruptcy attorney to determine if you can actually save money, and get more protection, by filing jointly.

It is critical to examine the debts carefully. Often we undertake a bankruptcy for a client and then, sometime later, they reveal that some of the debts were joint and now they cant pay those either. We then have to do a second bankruptcy for the family, resulting in unnecessary time, legal fees and perhaps aggravation.

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Tags: Joint, Joint Bankruptcies