In today’s email inbox came this message:
Message from UST Regarding Necessary Documentation for Chapter 7 Section 341 Meetings of Creditors
The Chapter 7 Panel Trustees for the District of Nebraska have standardized the documents that they will request in every chapter 7 case. The following documents must be submitted to the appointed trustee prior
Are trailer homes, pull-behind campers, and RVs protected in Nebraska bankruptcy cases?
Homes are protected in bankruptcy by a law called the Homestead exemption, and traditionally that exemption applies to homes built on land a debtor owns. But what about portable homes and RVs sitting on rented lots?
Saundra Latham writes a good review of the best credit counseling agencies of 2018 in The SimpleDollar website. She correctly points out that the best credit counseling firms to handle a Debt Management Plan are:
Generally speaking, if you are signing up for a Debt Management Plan to consolidate your debts into a payment plan managed by a certified credit counselor that provides lower interest rates and financial counseling, you want to go with an agency certified by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). The NFCC has the toughest certification standards in the credit counseling industry and it is simply unwise to go with an agency not certified by them.
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I continued to be amazed at the inability of banks to produce a copy of the actual credit card agreement signed by their customers when suing on a defaulted account. The inability or unwillingness to produce a signed agreement is truly astounding. How can a bank obtain a judgment for a debt on a written contract without production of the contract itself?
The answer to that question is that banks are allowed to rely on the monthly billing statements they send their customers as proof of the debt without having to produce a signed copy of the written agreement. This action is called an Account Stated lawsuit, and for the first time the Nebraska court system has issued a ruling specifically allowing these lawsuits to proceed in the case of American Express Centurian Bank v. Scheer, 25 Neb. App.784 (2018).
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The 8th Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel has issued a new opinion that is really causing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about the exemption status in bankruptcy cases of retirement accounts awarded to debtors during a divorce case.
If a debtor is awarded a portion of their ex-spouse’s retirement account in a divorce proceeding, is that account protected in bankruptcy? Until a few months ago the majority opinion was yes, but that is all changed since the BAP issued the Lerbakken opinion.
In Lerbakken, the debtor was awarded one-half of his wife’s 401(k) retirement account in a divorce proceeding. He subsequently filed Chapter 7 and the bankruptcy trustee claimed his interest in the retirement. The bankruptcy judge ruled in favor of the trustee citing the United States Supreme Court’s opinion of Clark v Rameker, a case involving inherited IRA accounts.
A “Suggestion of Bankruptcy” is a document filed in a lawsuit to notify the court that the defendant has filed bankruptcy. Filing such notices with the court is very helpful to the court and to opposing parties so they may cancel upcoming court hearings or pending garnishment orders. Many courts automatically place a pending lawsuit on hold until further order of the bankruptcy court and take affirmative steps to release garnished funds.
Our office files bankruptcy cases electronically and in the next moment we electronically file Suggestions of Bankruptcy with the Nebraska court system. The system is efficient and quick. The goal is to “put out the fire” of collection activity as quickly as possible, and filing Suggestions of Bankruptcy greatly facilitate that goal.
In most cases the bankruptcy results in a discharge of debts, but what happens if the bankruptcy case is dismissed without a discharge? Does the filing of a Suggestion of Bankruptcy mean that the debtor’s bankruptcy attorney has entered a general appearance on behalf of the debtor-defendant? Is the debtor’s attorney in a dismissed bankruptcy case now obligated to defend the debtor in the state court action?
The basic concept of the Life Sucks Budget is that for many of us there is just not enough money to pay the claims of bill collectors AND to pay the really important things of life, like retirement savings, emergency cash accounts, mortgage payments and modest family vacations. Something has to give, and too many of us put ourselves last and pay nothing towards our future needs and dreams so that we can just get by another month without receiving embarrassing phone calls or letters. The Life Sucks Budget is a call to rebalance this relationship and to put our legitimate financial and family needs first.
The fact is, many of you are already on the Life Sucks Budget but you don’t realize it or perhaps you are reluctant to confess that is what you are doing.
Spending 25 years interviewing clients about their financial habits reveals that at least half of the people I meet have no hope of being financially successful. They just want to get through the week and find a little peace in their day. They do not believe that they can win financially, and that mindset has a radical affect on their behavior.
Rule #1 of credit counseling is when you are trying to get out of debt you must forgo some expenses while paying off debt. The advice is universal. Decrease expenses. Increase income with a part-time job. Sell some stuff to raise cash. Get the debt snowball rolling. Suck it up and double down on the smallest debt and then the next smallest until all the debt is gone. Live like a crazy person until you can scream out loud I’M DEBT FREE!
And if your debt problem is that you spend money like a moron and you just need to grow up and cut expenses and work a pizza delivery job at night until you pay off the debt, that may be good advice. Dave Ramsey has built a 55 million dollar financial empire by giving out such advice.
In performing financial autopsies for my bankruptcy clients over the past 25 years I have noticed one common mistake people make. They fail to prioritize their money.
Priorities matter. Successful people have a common trait–they prioritize their day and do he most important tasks first. They write lists. They have WRITTEN goals for their day. They plan their day in advance, and then they go out an kick butt.
But when it comes to money, especially money in marriage, even organized people get messed up about how to set priorities with their money. Why is that?
I think part of the answer lies in those sappy marriage courses we take before our weddings. You know, the ones that say how a man and women become one and cease to have separate identities. No secrets in marriage. Everything is shared. Mutual submission. Love is generous and we support one another give all that we have to each other. Sound familiar? And somehow out of this marriage class people conclude that in marriage you should have a single joint bank account that is shared and all money earned goes into it and all expenses are paid out of it. No secrets. Complete transparency. Mutual submission. Yeah, what could go wrong with this plan?
When all of your money sits in a single bank account you effectively have no money priorities.
It is moronic for a married couple to handle all of their finances out of a single bank account. This is pretend land. It’s crazytown. When all of your money sits in a single bank account you effectively have no money priorities. Buying pizza has the same priority as paying the mortgage or insurance or saving for emergencies because when money is not divided into separate accounts there is no priority to the spending, and that is just not true.
Some expenses are more important than others. We all know that. Paying the mortgage or the insurance premium or saving for emergencies is vastly more important than paying for temporary needs, like a slice of pizza. And even if we verbally agree with this statement, if we just nod our head and do nothing more, then nothing has changed. Establishing priorities means taking action. It means dividing money into separate accounts based on their priority level.
There is one simple habit that all financially successful people do–they pay themselves first.
That phrase has always annoyed me. Pay myself first? What exactly does that mean? I heard financial gurus say that phrase over and over, and it just came off as cocky and glib.
“Want to become rich boy? Well, it’s simple. Just pay yourself first!” What? You can’t just pay yourself into wealth. You have to create the wealth. Build the business. Land the great job. Earn the money, and THEN you save money and become rich. Right?
Wrong. Want to get rich? Pay yourself first. Want to pay off the mortgage in retire with money in the bank? Then pay yourself first. Have financial problems? Pay yourself first.
In fact, the less money you earn the more important it is to pay yourself first.