The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

As millions will see in 2011, a personal bankruptcy can relieve you of your post-recessionary hangover, helping you dispense with debts accumulated during tough economic times and get you back on the road to financial freedom. And, while choosing bankruptcy has become an easier for so many average Americans seeking respite from their economic woes, which bankruptcy to choose can be a tougher decision.

Whether you choose a Chapter 13 repayment plan that allows you to save your home from foreclosure, or the quick disposal of unwieldy debt under Chapter 7, you can stop creditor harassment and drop your debt load with either personal bankruptcy.…

It’s no secret that a big reason for our country’s lingering financial malaise is the real estate market’s seemingly unending mortgage crisis—forcing many Americans out of house and home while also contributing to a bleak economic environment for home purchases, investment and spending.

But along with the knowledge that the mortgage servicing industry foreclosed on more than one million homes last year and is on track to do better in 2011, comes more bad news for the beleaguered economy: high unemployment is now further dragging down the housing market and subsequent prospects for our country’s economic recovery.

This news comes according to a new report from The Huffington Post.…

These summer months are shaping up (again) to be tough times for recent college graduates. This latest round of job seekers continues to face high unemployment and mounting debt. So what happens when these poor economic conditions coincide with payment deadlines for sometimes astronomical educational loans? One word: defaults. In the end, this feeling of financial helplessness leaves many recent grads reeling, and rightfully so, in an economic climate may mean they will never be as successful or financially secure as their parents.

According to a recent article in The Huffington Post, chronicling graduates’ search for better jobs (albeit without hope for a better future), this recent post-recessionary phenomenon may signify a broader trend.  “Historically, college graduates weather periods of economic recession better than their less-credentialed counterparts.…

From Joplin, Missouri, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Raleigh, North Carolina, and everywhere in between, we’ve all seen our fair share of devastating storms, winds, flooding and tornados this season–whether they be on television or impacting in our own backyards.  But amid the reports of destroyed homes and rising death tolls comes another, less well-known casualty of these now-ubiquitous natural disasters: massive job losses. And, in the aftermath, these employment-killing storms leave whole communities shattered and unable to rebuild back to their former financial underpinnings.

As MSNBC.com contributor Eve Tahmincioglu reported this week, “The plant where Joe Wermuth worked in Joplin, Mo., took a direct hit and was wiped out by the massive tornado that hit the town May 22.…

We talk a lot about the impact of the recent economic downturn on seniors: how hard is to retire, or even remain employed, as debt rises and dreams of post-career, golden years spent without worry fade as quickly as home prices.

But what about the millions of Americans who have yet to embark on careers, now facing a rude awakening that the jobs that used to pad their wallets and prepare them for college and the workforce, are now disappearing or filled by fellow workers twice their age? An underreported impact of our lingering economic malaise and changing job market is the impact on teenage workers.…

@font-face { font-family: “Times”; }@font-face { font-family: “ＭＳ 明朝”; }@font-face { font-family: “Cambria Math”; }@font-face { font-family: “Georgia”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in It’s that time of year again: baseball season. The smell of freshly-cut grass, the crack of the bat, the seventh inning stretches to the sound of the organ and the smell of a hot dog.

It’s also time for another great bankruptcy metaphor.

A personal bankruptcy can be just like a baseball game. Bankruptcy is ultimately an adversarial process during which there are many players on the field competing to achieve a fair and balanced result.…

It’s that time of year again: baseball season. The smell of freshly-cut grass, the crack of the bat, the seventh inning stretches to the sound of the organ and the smell of a hot dog.

It’s also time for another great bankruptcy metaphor.

A personal bankruptcy can be just like a baseball game. Bankruptcy is ultimately an adversarial process during which there are many players on the field competing to achieve a fair and balanced result. In the process, it’s important to understand all you can about each one—including their individual roles—in order to feel confident that you can win the game.…

Recent gains for marriage equality in states like Iowa and New Hampshire have been met by a lot of legal questions for those who are actually considering marriage with their gay and lesbian partner. Similarly, recently proposed legislation that would prohibit marriage between gay and lesbian couples in North Carolina is shedding a new spotlight on the confusing differences in relationship recognition in state and federal laws and the true legal challenges facing these couples throughout the Tar Heel State and entire country.

These legal hurdles for gay and lesbian spouses include added barriers when these couples seek the benefits of bankruptcy.…

In this additional online accompaniment to the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt website, we strive to cover much of the latest bankruptcy news as well as offer an insider’s guide of the ins and outs of the bankruptcy process. This includes a wealth of pre-bankruptcy considerations, a look at the intricacies of a bankruptcy filing, and sure-fire post-bankruptcy steps to get you back on the road to more financially-rewarding future.

But if you’re considering the benefits of bankruptcy for the very first time, there’s never been a better opportunity to get back to basics, with a simple overview of common bankruptcy law terminology that’s helpful to make any filing seem less daunting or confusing.…

Chicago’s own Giordano’s, one of the most popular purveyors of stuffed pizza, is filing for bankruptcy protection.

It’s not unusual to hear of any business filing for bankruptcy in these tough economic times. During the Recession, less consumer demand and fewer customer orders often caused a rise in inventory, losses in sales margins, and high debts with no solution other than going out of business or restructuring via a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

But for a culinary institution like Giordano’s, the story was different. As The Chicago Times put it, “It wasn’t the pizza, it was the real estate.”

It turns out that throughout a five-year period during which many other restaurants lost business, served fewer customers, and eventually were forced to close shop, Giordano’s had actually thrived.…

By now we know that “paying” with plastic is both a literal and metaphorical proposition, especially as a good number of bankruptcy bound individuals—even in an era of home-made foreclosure filings and mounting medical bills—find credit card debt to blame for their insolvency.

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (Credit CARD Act), signed into law by President Obama on May 22, 2009, was meant to change much of that. Signaling a new era of consumer protection, the so-called CARD Act was intended to shield average Americans from unexpected and massive changes to their credit card terms—terms that had previously led directly to financial hardship for an overwhelming amount of our nation’s families.…

If you’re like many average Americans, you were dealt a hefty budgetary blow during the recent Recession. And, as a result, you may have responded by trying to spend less, save more and reduce debts where you could—including cuts in your consumer credit card use.

If so, you’re not alone.

According to a recent report from Credit.com, since the inception of the economic crisis, more and more men and women are resisting the urge to spend, climbing aboard the equivalent of the “Good Ship Spendthrift” in order to create a sea of savings on a new course to a better financial future.…

New data shows that 2010 was marked by more personal bankruptcies than any other year since stricter federal bankruptcy laws were enacted in 2005. Roughly 1.53 million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in 2010, up 9 percent from 1.41 million in 2009, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, citing data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center.

What’s more, this five-year high in the number of U.S. consumers seeking bankruptcy protections could rise even higher as other Americans continue to drown in debts accumulated during the economic meltdown.

With so many average Americans seeking the safe havens of a bankruptcy petition, you may be wondering, “should I file?” While the answer always depends on the details of your individual financial situation, there are a few traditional factors in your situation that can (and should) point you to the reasonableness of your decision to file or not to file.…

When asked in a recent interview by Anna Robertson of Yahoo! News what he had to say to America’s 14.5 million unemployed, the Vice President Joe Biden responded, “hang in there.” Pointing to a slow and gradual national recovery, Biden said that while the unemployment rate is only “dropping minimally,” the economy is slowly improving, leaving Americans to wait it out. “A significant portion of the companies out there … are saying now that they’re gonna begin to hire this year,” he said. “The message is hang in there, things are coming back.”

While millions of hopeful men and women attempt to heed the Vice President’s advice and wait for things to return to pre-recessionary “normality,” the realities of the current economic malaise are bleaker.…

It’s closing in on the end of the first month of 2011, another year into the Great Recession. Of course, things do look “somewhat” better than they did for the last three. However, everything does when enough time passes.

If you filed bankruptcy in 2010, or anytime in the last couple of years, chances are you made a few financial resolutions for the new year. Great. But now you have to stick to them.

In order to help you stay true to your own economic goals, lets’ explore the ways many financial resolutions end up going broke.

First, it is critical that you do not set your expectations too high.…

The nation’s residential real estate market continues to tumble, further complicating life for millions of Americans looking to either buy or sell a home in the near future.

Not only that, but home sales are so tightly wound into our economic system that every ebb and flow tends to create ripples on Wall Street. Financial analysts around the country are doing all they can to instill a sense of calm in the American people about our financial system. Every time they do, more facts about a faltering real estate market come to light, scaring those who currently own and increasing the hesitation in those thinking about buying.…

In 2010, the Obama administration reworked its $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program (AKA “HAMP”) in an attempt to better help those hardest hit by the housing crisis: homeowners who were unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (i.e., owing more on their loans than their homes are worth). Within these changes, (1) the unemployed could qualify for up to a six month stay on their mortgage payments;  (2) in turn, participating banks would receive financial incentives to reduce mortgage balances for underwater homeowners; and (3) lenders could refinance mortgage loans secured by the Federal Housing Administration.

More information about HAMP can be found at the Making Home Affordable FAQ section.…

Ah, tax season: the oft-dreaded time when we’re all forced to assess a previous year’s worth of financial doings, pay back deficiencies and seek deductions. But this year’s tax season may become a bit more taxing for some as industry watchdogs are finding that the Internal Revenue Service is further targeting struggling taxpayers with aggressive tactics meant to retrieve all that is owed from already economy-ravaged Americans.

As the Associated Press reported this month, “the Internal Revenue Service is tormenting struggling taxpayers in the midst of a slumping economy by increasing the number of liens the agency has filed against people who owe back taxes.…

As we’re all now aware, this decade’s economic downturn has dealt, and unfortunately continues to deal, a significant blow to the budgets of many American families, leaving millions in debt, facing foreclosure, and sometimes looking to any means necessary to break even, much less get back on a financially-healthy course. And so, once again, we’re finding that the beginnings of tax season can also yield it’s own set of challenges for some cash-strapped citizens as many turn to plastic to pay back what they owe the IRS.

Unfortunately, with the advent of online filings, paying your taxes with a credit card has never been simpler.…

Despite an apparent uptick in consumer confidence this during the latter part of 2010, no one is buying the idea that the housing market—a major cause for this decade’s economic meltdown—is getting better anytime soon. In fact, according to U.S. Bank regulators, the country’s home foreclosures actually spiked in the third quarter as banks and other mortgage lenders became less inclined to help Americans stay in their homes as the housing market continues to struggle. While these same regulators blame the increases in foreclosures on the fact lenders have run out of modification options for keeping beleaguered (but delinquent) borrowers in their home sweet homes, the number of actual loan modifications, especially those processed through the Home Affordable Modification Program (or HAMP), the Obama administration’s leading foreclosure prevention effort, don’t pan out.…