Recent headlines noted that March 2022 saw a 33.5% increase in bankruptcy filings over February. This could suggest the coming swell in bankruptcy cases anticipated since the start of the COVID pandemic. However, bankruptcy professionals recognize that consumer filings always spike in March (see chart). This phenomenon is usually attributed to the tendency to avoid filing in January and February...

This Part 6 continues1 an analysis of judicial developments with a significant decision on finality of a Chapter 13 confirmation order. In re Bozeman Section 1327 of the Bankruptcy Code provides that a confirmed Chapter 13 plan binds the debtor and creditors to its terms.2 In In re Bozeman,3 the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit looked at a...

So, what happens to post-petition appreciation of assets during a Chapter 13? Does the Debtor get to keep the money? Or does the Chapter 13 Trustee get it for the benefit of creditors? That was the question for the Court in In re Klein, 2022 WL 3902822 (Bankr. D. Colo. 2022). The question in Klein is a bit different than...

By Wm. Houston Brown, United States Bankruptcy Judge (Retired) Debtor’s Attorney - Suspension of firm upheld. The District court affirmed the 90-day suspension of Law Solutions Chicago, LLC (d/b/a UpRight Law, LLC), with the record supporting the bankruptcy court’s findings that the firm failed to adequately represent the debtor in a “simple” consumer case. Disgorgement of fees was appropriate under...

IRS has begun sending letters to virtual currency owners advising them to pay back taxes, file amended returns; part of agency’s larger efforts. On July 26th, the IRS announced that it has begun sending letters to taxpayers with virtual currency transactions that potentially failed to report income and pay the resulting tax from virtual currency transactions or did not report...

It started as a means test question: could emergency medical expenses be deemed non consumer debt. It ended up as a step back to get the bigger picture. Well seasoned bankruptcy counsel brought the fact pattern to a list serve of colleagues. The prospective debtors’ income in a small consulting corporation is declining, his health crisis raises not only income...

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.

Failure of Chapter 13 debtors to satisfy post-petition property tax payments to the county, specifically required in the debtors’ Chapter 13 plan, renders the debtors ineligible for a discharge, even where the debtors proposed a loan modification to repay the mortgage creditor which had advanced the post-petition taxes. (Rodriguez) In re Villarreal, 2022 WL 1102223 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. April 12,...

Chapter 13 plans and confirmation orders will occasionally include post-confirmation disclosure and turnover requirements for tax returns and refunds and for other types of post-petition recoveries and income. Debtors are expected, on their own and without the need for rigorous trustee oversight, to fulfill the turnover requirements as a condition of plan completion and discharge. What happens when the case...

By Lawrence R. Ahern III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) Introduction Following Part 1's review of the December 1, 2021, changes in the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, this Part 2 presents a digest of selected judicial decisions of interest for their procedural import arising under Parts I-III of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. Digest of Selected Judicial Decisions