Hello, this is Jeff Kelly and Today is June the 15th 2020. And today I want to talk about how to protect yourself from theft in a chapter 13 with NDC.org. Every active chapter 13 debtor should open an account with NDC.org, the cost is free, but the information you see could be worth a lot of money and save you from theft. Having an account with NDC.org will allow you to see every single proof of claim that has been filed in your bankruptcy case and it will also allow you to verify that your chapter 13 payments are being received by the trustee. Years ago I had a client whose employer took money from her paycheck, but never sent it into the trustee. We caught the error and had to sue the employer to get the money paid. Having an account with NDC.org allows you to catch stuff like this. Proof of claim is a form signed under oath, with supporting documentation that a creditor must file in a bankruptcy case in order to get paid. The proof of claim will tell the trustee the type of claim and the amount owed. If a creditor fails to file before the deadline in your case, they won’t get paid anything. For example, let’s say you had a car repossessed a few years ago, and owe the car creditor $10,000. If they fail to file a proof of claim on time, you will not have to pay that $10,000. Let’s change up the facts ...
Transcript: Hello, this is Jeff Kelly and Today is November 21 2019. And today I would like to talk about the topic of the bankruptcy means test. So what is the Means Test? Some people call it the median income test. Basically, this was like the main driver of when the bankruptcy laws were reformed way back in October 2005. I cannot believe it’s been that long ago, it seems like yesterday to me, but I remember that day. And the purpose was that, you know, Congress reformed the bankruptcy laws so that basically if you make more money than an average family of your size, then they don’t want you to be allowed to wipe out all of your debts in a chapter 7. They want you to file chapter 13. Now the philosophy is That there is closer scrutiny in a 13 as opposed to a chapter 7. I don’t know that’s necessarily true. I have found the chapter seven trustees to be just as anal and nitpicky as chapter 13 trustees. I think they’re they both guard the gate very well. You’re not going to slide anything past a 13 trustee or a chapter 7 trustee. But that was a philosophy is there is this myth out there that all these people were making great incomes and filing chapter 7 when they shouldn’t have been and the poor old credit card companies that are ripping off America by charging 30% interest or more, it was just unfair to them. So they created this thing called the median income test. Now, what I ...
Transcript: Hello, this is Jeff Kelly bankruptcy attorney. And today I’m going to talk about can you marry someone who is about to file bankruptcy? And the answer is absolutely not. It’s not legal. Just kidding, of course. Just kidding. Just kidding. Relax. I know marriage can be a super scary proposition. You’ve got in-laws on the other side. You’ve got new potentially new brother in law’s and sister-in-laws. And now you’ve got more pressure on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and on and on and on. And then what happens if you also find out oh my gosh, the love of my life is loaded down with tonnes of debt. What should we do? Well, I think the worst thing you can do is to try to talk them out of filing bankruptcy. I think filing for bankruptcy might be the the best thing you can do to help get your marriage off to a nice fresh start, get rid of that stuff if you can. If you wait until after the wedding takes place, then the income of both spouses will count on the bankruptcy means test. So in other words, if you are a high-income earner, you could end up disqualifying your future spouse from being eligible to file bankruptcy if they need to, if you wait until after the wedding. However, if a person has high income, and they need to file bankruptcy, and the person they’re going to marry has no income in that particular case, it might make sense to wait until after ...
