The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

Foreclosures have become a plague across the country, sickening the economies of small towns, the general contractor industry and even the commercial real estate industry. No facet of the real estate world has gone unaffected.

Whether your home was foreclosed upon or your mortgage lender granted you a short sale (negotiated permission to sell your home for less than what is owed), it was probably considered a tremendous relief to drop the proverbial financial anchor tied around your neck.

However, thousands of Americans once in the same boat are now finding that the tide is again rising around them, as banks and lenders are coming back months later for the remainder of what is owed on the home.…

It’s been a very rough year for media companies, particularly newspaper publishers. An ongoing decline in advertising revenue, huge debt and a continuing inability to obtain additional credit have threatened the industry at large. It should come as no surprise, then, that a number of newspaper publishers have sought protection from creditors through Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings and have been sorting out their financial affairs under the oversight of U.S. bankruptcy courts.

Tribune Co., home to the Chicago Tribune, has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since December 2008. A variety of creditors are fighting for control of Tribune Co., chief among them senior creditors led by JPMorgan Chase, which is challenging a bankruptcy court decision to extend the deadline for Tribune Co.…

If you’re considering a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, chances are you’ve already heard about the Means Test—the test that determines whether or not you qualify for a Chapter 7.

If you make less than the median income for your state, you don’t even have to worry about the means test!  (To find out what your state’s median income is, you can go to http://www.justice.gov/ust/eo/bapcpa/20091101/bci_data/median_income_table.htm).

If you make more than your state’s median income you may still be able to pass the means test by deducting certain expenses from your gross income.  You’re going to want to talk to a qualified bankruptcy attorney about this one, though—the means test is notoriously complicated!  Your attorney has the knowledge and experience to determine what amounts of your income have to be applied to the means test as well as what expenses may be deducted.…

In the last year, we’ve been witness to one record breaking bankruptcy petition after the next, from national retailers like Circuit City to automobile manufacturing icons like General Motors. However, in the last few months, fewer companies have failed thanks to the relative loosening of the credit markets and the somewhat more complex process of bond sales and distressed-debt exchanges.

A distressed-debt exchange occurs when bondholders trade, or exchange, current debt for debt that will come due down the road or for equity in the hopefully stronger company, provided the money from the bonds fuels enough positive change.

Okay, and what are bonds?…

The current administration would love to perpetuate the common belief that most personal bankruptcies are the result of ruinous medical bills. News articles cite numerous studies and statistics that support this theory. But is it really true?

The “recent” Harvard study that has been bandied about lately as proof that the broken US healthcare system is behind the majority of personal bankruptcies was originally published in 2005, five years ago, and was based on data collected in 2001. The study states that “about half of people filing for bankruptcy said health care expenses, illness or related job-loss led them to do so.” Politicians and the media are fond of attributing the “about half” statistic solely to health care expenses as a cause of bankruptcy, as in “about half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.”

In the study, the actual percentage of respondents who indicated that medical issues were a significant factor in declaring bankruptcy was 46.2.…