By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Middle District of TN (Nashville) Where pro se debtors filed numerous groundless complaints and made specious allegations against their former counsel, sanctions under Rule 9011 were appropriate notwithstanding the fact that the debtors were now acting pro se. (Hopkins) In re Jones, 2021 WL 4168110 (Bankr. S.D. O.H., Sept....

By David Cox,1 Cox Law Group, PLLC (Lynchburg, VA) Overview Filing considerations. Perfect Storm! Pensions going down. Healthcare costs going up. Home Equity high. Medical debts increasing. Limited income. Common considerations. Embarrassment. Many of the elderly are from a generation which regards bankruptcy as an indication of moral failure and shame. Confidentiality. May not want family members, including a spouse,...

By Lawrence R. Ahern, III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) Introduction The primary purpose of this two-part paper is to explore recent legislation that makes it easier for some individuals to modify the terms of their residential mortgages, especially if they are farmers or small business owners. The emphasis is on the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA).1 A...

Tracy Updike of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has been named as a Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Northern District of Indiana.  Updike will be filling the trusteeship vacated by Debra Miller when she accepted a trusteeship in the Eastern District of Tennessee.

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Trustee for the Middle District of TN (Nashville) Where a Chapter 13 plan provides that a mortgage payment will be paid “outside the plan,” the plan does not “provide for” the mortgage payment and, accordingly, the discharge under § 1328 is not applicable to the mortgage obligation. Dukes v. Suncoast Credit Union, 909...

By Professor Nancy Rapoport, University of Nevada Dear Readers: Regina Logsdon has just asked me a great question: In this new world of Zoom, is it okay to record meetings? Video and audio? Permission needed? Does it vary state to state? We are living in a new normal, and video conferencing will continue to be part of our lives even...

By Matthew D. Resnik, Resnik Hayes Moradi, LLP (Encino, CA) In Bobka v. Toyota Motor Credit Corporation (In re Bobka), 968 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. August, 2020), the chapter 7 debtor wanted to retain her leased Toyota. Toyota sent her an "assumption agreement" which she signed and returned to Toyota the day before she received her discharge. By then she...

By Jan Hamilton, Standing Chapter 13 Trustee (Topeka, KS) I just got back from RAGBRAI, which is a bicycle ride across Iowa. This year, it was 468 miles, with lots and lots of hills. (Biking Across Kansas was over 500 miles this year.) Such beautiful country. Estimates vary on actual number of riders, but anywhere from 16,000 to 20,000. Iowa...

By Gretchen D. Holland, Standing Chapter 13 Trustee for the Greenville/Spartanburg Division of South Carolina Although this is a chapter 11 case, it has chapter 13 implications because the confirmation requirement that a plan be “proposed in good faith and not by any means forbidden by law” is identical in both chapters (§ 1129(a)(3) and § 1325(a)(3)). Garvin v. Cook...

Dear Readers: When a judge issues a 28-page opinion sanctioning a lawyer, usually that means that the lawyer has done so many things wrong that he or she has caused the judge to roll up his or her respective sleeves (probably shirt-sleeves, although the image of robe-sleeves also works for me) to deal with the mess. And in Shiheiber v....