Chapter 13 debtor’s counsel’s fee award was reduced to $48,116 from the requested $95,480 due to pre-petition payments, confusing and “lumped” time entries, and excessive hourly rates for some services performed, even though the debtor’s Chapter 13 plan was never even proposed much less confirmed. The debtor never attended a meeting of creditors, but the debtor managed to recover his...

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee (Nashville, TN) Are private educational student loans automatically excepted from discharge by § 523(a)(8). (Jacobs) Homaidan v. Sallie Mae, Inc., Navient Solutions, LLC, 2021 WL 2964217 (2nd Cir. July 15, 2021) Case Summary Hilal Homaidan received a number of educational loans to attend College. Shortly after graduation, he filed a Chapter...

By Lawrence R. Ahern III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) PART VI – CONSUMER FORECLOSURE PROCEDURES (CONCLUSION) Introduction In the consumer bankruptcy field, trustees and debtors' counsel often are uncomfortable with the rules in Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). In this series for the NACTT Academy, we have looked at numerous topics involving the interplay of Article...

The no man's land between the mortgage due date and late payment is a persistent trouble spot for Chapter 13 practitioners. Are there arrears when the case is filed during the grace period and the payment made before it was late? In Borre, Judge Ronald Sargis of ED CA said no. He held that the payment was not in default...

By Jan Hamilton, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee (Topeka, KS) Click here for Part One Click here for Part Two What needs to be in a plan filed in a case under the SBRA? Start with the statute…1 A. Contents of Plan2 Comparison of “Contents . . . It looks like you are not signed in or registered! This content is...

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Application of Taggart to lien avoidance. When the Chapter 13 confirmed plan bifurcated the secured creditor’s claim and the secured portion had been paid in full with interest, the completion of payments voided any lien, and the creditor violated the discharge injunction by commencing foreclosure. The Panel found the plan’s language, although “inartful,”...

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...

Introduction In In re Village Apothecary, Inc.,1 the Sixth Circuit recently cut an attorney's fee by half, where the services were not successful. The panel held that the results obtained (or, actually, the lack of results) justified the dramatic reduction of the fees of attorneys for a Chapter 7 trustee. In Part 1, we looked at . . . It...

(Used with expressed permission from the MI Bankruptcy Journal and the Steven W. Rhodes Consumer Bankruptcy Conference) I. Introduction Although the Bankruptcy Code has been around for decades, bankruptcy courts continue to be faced with significant disputes regarding the interpretation of its provisions. An emerging issue that has gained traction in recent years involves the compensation of a chapter 13...

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Class action certification on predominance. The Eleventh Circuit remanded, finding that the District Court had abused its discretion in refusing to certify a class on a predominance theory for former debtors who had obtained discharge of personal liability on residential mortgages and who asserted violations of the FDCPA by a loan servicer. The...