Articles Posted in St. Louis Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Yes, it is possible to keep all of your rental properties when you file a St. Louis bankruptcy. But there are several things you need to know about this before you do anything.

When you file a Missouri bankruptcy, you have duty to disclose to the court all of your assets (real and personal). This obviously would include any rental properties that you own. But the main question is this: what is the fair market value of the real estate? Because if there is a good deal of equity in the property, then it can have implications for the type of bankruptcy you end up filing.

So let’s say for instance that you have two rental properties. One of them has a mortgage loan against it, and balance is $100,000. But the value of this property is closer to $75,000. In this scenario, the house is described as “upside-down,” or “under water”. In other words, there is no equity in the home at all (if you tried to sell the property, you would lose money). Assuming these numbers are correct, then there is nothing that the Bankruptcy Trustee can do about the property. If you filed a St. Louis Chapter 7, you could simply reaffirm the mortgage, and continue making regular monthly payments to the bank.

The simple and easy answer is that you file a St. Louis Chapter 13 bankruptcy. This is the safest legal mechanism that you have at your disposal. So long as your case is filed before the foreclosure sale goes through, then you can save your home.

The economy that we live in has produced a lot of financial hardship for people. No matter what your status was prior to the economy meltdown in 2008, it is likely that you have experienced a fair amount of difficulty in trying to stay afloat. Job loss, cut hours, entire companies closing down. The list of casualties is long (and still growing).

One of the biggest knocks that people have had to deal with is the collapse of the mortgage industry. This particular sector of the economy has taken a tremendous hit. As a result, the value in people’s homes has shrunk to unbelievably low levels. This has prevented people from doing things like refinancing their loans, negotiating a new monthly payment, or even modifying the existing structure of the mortgage itself.

No, not necessarily. Although sometimes it can get held up because of a disagreement between you and the Trustee.

When you file a St. Louis Chapter 13 bankruptcy, one of the key forms that need to be submitted to the court is a Chapter 13 plan. This plan describes in detail which creditors are to be paid, over what period of time, using which particular interest rate, and whether or not such payments will be made by the Trustee or the Debtor (i.e. the person who files for a St. Louis bankruptcy). Once all of this data is compiled, and the necessary calculations are made, you are your attorney will be in a good position to determine how much your monthly payment should be.

So let’s look at a particular example: let us assume that you have a mortgage on your house, but you have fallen behind on payments by four months. This arrearage equals $4,500, and will be paid back over the course of several years. In addition, let us further assume that you have a car loan with a balance of $17,000. This debt will also be paid back during the life of your Missouri Chapter 13 plan. And if you owe any tax debt, back child support, or overdue spousal support (i.e. alimony), these things will be paid back as well. In addition, it is possible that you will have to pay back a certain portion of your unsecured debt as well (things like credit cards, medical bills, payday loans, etc). But there are specific calculations that are used to determine how much of this debt is paid back.

Yes, it is possible to keep a motorcycle (or boat, or some other non-traditional form of transportation). But there are a couple of different things you should keep in mind before your case is filed.

The easiest way to help you understand how your motorcycle will be affected is if we look at the two major chapters of bankruptcy side by side: in a St. Louis Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you have to make the court aware of all the personal property you own. This obviously would include any and all modes of transportation, like a motorcycle. The motorcycle you own is either going to be paid in full (in other words, no lien is attached to it), or you have a loan against it (in other words, you are financing the bike by way of monthly payments).

In either scenario (whether the motorcycle is paid in full or it has a loan against it), the real question is whether is any equity in the bike. Equity is the amount of value (that exists on paper) beyond what is currently owed. So for instance, if you owe $5,000 on the balance of your loan, and the fair market value of the bike is $7,000, that means that there is $2,000 in equity (7000 – 5000 = 2000). In addition, you are given a $3,000 exemption to cover any equity in a vehicle. In the above scenario, the motorcycle will be completely exempted, and you will still have one thousand left over.

No, that is not necessary at all. Some people are completely current on all their debts right before they file a St. Louis bankruptcy. And sometimes, individuals are several years behind on their bills before filing a petition.

The exact time you file a Missouri bankruptcy is dependent upon several factors. If you are facing a home foreclosure, and you wish to keep your house, then it will be necessary to file a case immediately. Or if your car has been repossessed, and you want the automobile back, it would be advisable to file as soon as possible. In both of these situations, there is a limited amount of time before either asset is disposed of. And once the car or house is sold, there is no getting it back.

Other factors that can make the filing of a St. Louis Chapter 7 bankruptcy or a St. Louis Chapter 13 bankruptcy more urgent are wage garnishments (in which your paycheck has being deducted up to 25% of your net earnings), bank levies (in which the creditor puts a freeze against your accounts, making it impossible for you to access the funds inside them), and a pending lawsuit (in which a creditor has sued you based on breach of contract). And of course, it should be noted that the overall stress that comes with having to deal with a great many creditors and collection agencies can be quite a burden to deal with as well. So if you are one of the many people who are at their wit’s end in putting up with such harassment, then filing sooner than later can give you a great deal of relief.

No, not necessarily. The goal is to be in a situation in which you only have to pay back a certain portion of your unsecured debt (such as credit cards, medical bills, payday loans, etc).

A St. Louis Chapter 13 bankruptcy is described as a repayment plan over the course of three to five years, during which certain debts are paid back. Some of these debts take precedence over others. For instance, secured debts have the highest priority. These would be things like car loans and mortgage arrearage (i.e. the amount that you have fallen behind on your house payments), and other home-related debts like real estate taxes and sewer bills. The next highest priority would be basic tax debts (like income, personal property, and sales tax), and domestic support obligations (like back child support and spousal maintenance). The lowest priority given to debts inside a Missouri Chapter 13 bankruptcy is the unsecured variety (like credit cards).

So if you have to pay back your secured debts (like a car) and priority debts (like delinquent income taxes) in a Chapter 13, the real question is how much of the unsecured debt (like medical bills) do you have to pay back?

Yes, you can. But there are certain details that you must first be sure of before you file so that you know for sure if those assets will be safe. This is why it is so very important to hire an experienced attorney who knows the ins and outs of bankruptcy law. Because unfortunately, there are many people each year who file cases in which they lose valuable assets when it was not necessary for it happen.

When you file a Missouri or Illinois bankruptcy, the court requires that you disclose all of your assets, whether this property is personal in nature (like books, clothes, or your checking accounts) or real (like your house, land you own, or a timeshare). Once these disclosures are made, it is then necessary to provide the court and Trustee with what you believe to be the fair market value of these assets. For personal property, it is sufficient to provide ‘garage sale’ value. But for real property, you will need to establish what the market value is of your home. This is not an exact science, but you should keep in mind that when you make a determination as to the value of your home, you are looking at the value of your home ‘as is’. In other words, you do not want to think about what your house would be worth if you got the roof fixed and leak in the basement repaired; you also want to take into consideration what other houses in your area are actually selling for; and you will want to look at what at the most recent assessment the county has made.

With an automobile, you will also want to take stock of the current condition of the vehicle(s). For instance, if it has ever been in an accident before (even if was subsequently repaired); or if there is existing damage to the interior or exterior of the car; and of course what value publications such as the Kelly Blue Book give to it (although the values represented in this book do not always paint an accurate picture of the car’s worth).

That is an excellent question. But the answer may surprise you.

To begin with, the area of law that regulates what a debt collector can and cannot do when they attempt to collect on a debt is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This is a federal statute that makes it very clear what is a violation of someone’s consumer rights. In fact the language of this law is so clear on its face that it is difficult to see how anyone could ‘accidently’ break the rules found within it. But break the rules they do (with frequency).

So why is this the case? Well, most people have never even heard of the FDCPA (chances are, this is the first time you have ever read about it). And even if people know that there is probably some kind of protective regulation out there making some the tactics used by collectors unlawful, most individuals do not pursue any sort of recourse. They believe that it will be too time consuming, or costly, or that there won’t be a satisfactory outcome anyway.