From the Editor’s Desk – Priority Claims • NACTT Academy

From the Editor’s Desk – Priority Claims

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired)

Claim for reimbursement of maintenance overpayments was not domestic support obligation. In a prebankruptcy divorce, the former spouse was ordered to pay the debtor $700 per week in maintenance, a clear domestic support obligation, but the state court subsequently retroactively terminated the maintenance award, ordering the debtor to reimburse her former husband $28,581.15 in maintenance payments that had been deducted from his wages. The former husband filed a priority claim for the unpaid reimbursement and for delinquent child support. Although some courts had construed obligations to reimburse . . .

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Reasonable Fees and/or Questionable Attorney

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By Marsha M. Brown, Staff Attorney to Chapter 13 Trustee Douglas W. Neway (Jacksonville, FL) We talk about it daily - emailing issues back and forth as to what is reasonable and what is not. Should every Court have a basic reasonable fee structure or should every attorney be required to file an application to prove the reasonableness of his/her...

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Preferences: When does the Clock Start Running?

Alan C. Hochheiser

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Creditors may now be subject to more preference actions, especially for those cases filed in Indiana. The Seventh Circuit recently overturned long-standing precedent that the preference period on garnishment of attachment would no longer run from the date of service or knowledge of the attachment but when the funds were paid over. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Mark...

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Creditors’ Rights and Debtors’ Protections at the Intersection of Consumer Bankruptcy and UCC Article 9

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By Lawrence R. Ahern III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) Introduction to this Series Current pandemic circumstances and economic conditions portend an onslaught of bankruptcy filings. In the consumer bankruptcy field, trustees and debtors' counsel often are uncomfortable with the rules in UCC Article 9. Here, we look at a couple of topics that touch on the interplay of Article...

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By Cathy Moran, Esq. (Redwood City, CA) Once again, I sat in a 341 meeting where the trustee’s representative purported to deliver vital information to the assembled debtors. She had a captive audience of anxious listeners. She had ostensible power of life and death over their financial future. They needed to know what she had to say. But as communication,...

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Measuring Success in Chapter 13: Successful Dismissals and Conversions

Honorable Brian D. Lynch

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A. Introduction When should we regard dismissal or conversion of a chapter 13 as an unsuccessful bankruptcy? The arguments are familiar.Chapter 13 is the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way to stop foreclosures, repossessions, and garnishments by creditors.Desperate debtors can file a chapter 13 case without schedules, statements, or a plan and buy themselves a stay for a short period. And...

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The Long Reach of R. 3002.1

Cathy Moran

August 20, 2023

What are the consequences of a secured lender’s failure to comply with R. 3002.1 in a prior case when the debtor files again? Significant, it seems. . . . since their attorney said he “didn’t see the need” to do so. [Can you guess, now, how this comes out?]

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Generative A.I. – Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

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“ . . . next leap: Generative A.I. learns everything there is to know about you from your public social media presence and crafts phishing attacks unique to YOU.”

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Separately Classifying Student Loans in Chapter 13

The Academy

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We originally ran this item in May to give you a heads up of what was coming. July is almost here . . . Starting July 1st, Chapter 13 debtors in Federal Student Loan IDR plans will receive IDR credit for each month they make their bankruptcy plan payments, without needing to separately classify their student loans.

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Surrender of Collateral in a Plan- What Is the Court to Do if the Debtor Doesn’t Follow Through?

June 2, 2019

By Tammy E. Stickley and Francis J. DiCesare, Staff Attorneys for Margaret A. Burks, Esq. Chapter 13 Standing Trustee (Cincinnati, OH) In a media age in which people expect to be told when “spoilers” are ahead, this summary needs no such warning. Courts have little patience for debtors who surrender collateral – especially real estate – then oppose the foreclosure...

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Critical Case Comment – Don’t File a Individual Chapter 13 If the Assets Are Owned by an LLC; It Will Cost You – BIG

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

September 25, 2022

Where a debtor and debtor’s counsel initiated a Chapter 13 petition in an effort to halt a foreclosure against property held by the debtor’s LLC, and where the debtor took no steps to correct the filing, sanctions would be imposed against debtor’s counsel. (Grabill) In re Scaccia, 2022 WL 1216284 (Bankr. E.D. La. April 25, 2022) Case Summary Scaccia owned...

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