Bankruptcy Utility bills

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Debtor-Creditor Secured interests; receivership

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Bankruptcy Cramdowns

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Bankruptcy Dischargeability; willful and malicious acts

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Bankruptcy Adversary petitions; timeliness A creditor’s adversary petition filed after the deadline must be dismissed even though the trustee obtained an extension, and initially sought an extension for all interested parties. “Perhaps it is theoretically possible for a creditor to ...

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Bankruptcy Exemptions; marital property Where assets classified as marital property are not fungible or easily divisible by nature, the debtor’s interest in the entire property justifies her ability to claim an exemption in the entire equity, up to the dollar ...

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Bankruptcy Exemptions; marital property Where assets classified as marital property are not fungible or easily divisible by nature, the debtor’s interest in the entire property justifies his ability to claim an exemption in the entire equity, up to the dollar ...

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Bankruptcy Preferential transfers Where the debtor’s son was a guarantor of a loan, all payments made by the debtor to the creditor are preferential transfers, and the amount of the payments can be recovered from the son. “The Court recognizes ...

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Debtor-Creditor Replevin; notice; venue Robert Lansing appeals an order denying his motion to reopen a replevin judgment. He argues that the judgment is void for two reasons: (1) Condor Capital Corporation failed to provide all of the notices listed in ...

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Bankruptcy Unsecured liens; strip-off A wholly unsecured junior lien on the principal residence of a debtor can be stripped-off in chapter 13 despite the operation of 11 U.S.C. 1328(f)(1). “Many of the cases which refuse to allow lien stripping in ...

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Bankruptcy Issue preclusion Issue preclusion does not bar a bankrupt gambler from contesting the dischargeability of a Nevada casino’s default judgment. “Peterson never litigated the issue of fraud. Peterson stopped pursuing his case on, or shortly after, May 11, 2009. ...

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Bankruptcy Nondischargeability; issue preclusion A grant of summary judgment in state court on a tortious interference with contract claim does not preclude the defendant from discharging the debt in bankruptcy. “First Weber faced a lower burden of proof in the ...

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Bankruptcy filings soared in 2010 to their highest levels since 2005, the year the pending Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act prompted record filings in order to beat the Act’s effective date.

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Bankruptcy Denial of discharge Where the debtors made numerous material omissions, displaying a reckless disregard for the truth, they were properly denied discharge of their debts. “Some bankruptcy courts examining ‘ordinary course,’ both in the section 727 context and in ...

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Wisconsin’s bankruptcy courts are divided over whether a Chapter 13 debtor can give preferential treatment to student loan debts.

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Bankruptcy Student loans Student loan obligations are not a special circumstance under 11 U..C. 707(b)92)(B); but a debtor may separately classify the loan obligations and maintain regular payments on them. “The Debtor has failed to demonstrate that the repayment of ...

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Bankruptcy Discharge; fraud A judgment pursuant to a state’s home improvement act can be discharged in bankruptcy. “At bottom, this case involves a miscommunication, not fraud. Reeves and Davis had different understandings of what was included in the contract. The ...

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Bankruptcy Estate Where an unambiguous deed gives the debtor an interest in real estate, the trustee is authorized to sell it for the benefit of creditors. “As the Wisconsin Supreme Court has observed, if a deed is susceptible to only ...

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Bankruptcy Sanctions Where an attorney filed a bankruptcy petition, knowing the client was not eligible for discharge, for the sole purpose of delaying a garnishment creditor, a $500 sanction is appropriate. “She freely admitted she had filed the case solely ...

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Bankruptcy Exemptions; EdVest EdVest College Savings Plans are not exempt property in bankruptcy. “It is certainly not inconceivable that the Wisconsin legislature intended to create an unlimited exemption for college savings accounts and that the ‘account owner’ would be entitled ...

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It is common knowledge that student loans are nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy.

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Bankruptcy Sanctions Where most of an attorney’s errors in a bankruptcy proceeding were procedural errors rather than the result of bad faith, a sanction of more than $60,000 is excessive. “Notwithstanding the reasonableness of the decision to award sanctions and ...

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Bankruptcy Retroactivity The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ransom v. FIA Card Services, 2011 U.S. LEXIS 608 (Jan. 11, 2011), applies retroactively to unconfirmed Chapter 13 plans filed prior to the decision.  “Ransom announces the Supreme Court’s construction of the ...

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Bankruptcy Nondischargeability; fiduciary duty Even if a corporate director or officer of an insolvent corporation owes a fiduciary duty to creditors, that duty is not a basis for non-dischargeability of the debt, absent fraud. “Here, the bankruptcy judge correctly concluded ...

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It has been a long and winding road for Wisconsin bankruptcy attorneys who file under Chapter 13 when an above-median income debtor owes no money on his car.

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Bankruptcy Means test; car payments A debtor who does not make loan or lease payments may not take the car-ownership deduction. The vehicle-ownership category covers only the costs of a car loan or lease. The expense amount listed ($471) is ...

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Bankruptcy Exemptions A debtor who cannot exempt property under either the Wisconsin state exemptions or another state’s exemptions can use the federal exemptions under sec. 522(d). “The context of the exemption statute in the state court judgment enforcement provisions and ...

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Bankruptcy Foreclosure sales Where the debtor’s house was bought at a sheriff’s sale after foreclosure, but the down payment was forfeited, the down payment is to be used to reduce the debtor’s arrearages on the house. “In truth, the forfeited ...

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Bankruptcy Discharge; fraud Summary judgment on a debt’s nondischargeability for fraud is inappropriate where the debtor is a contractor, and there is a factual dispute whether he was negligent or committed an intentional theft. “In essence, there is a dispute ...

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Bankruptcy Discharge; exceptions; misrepresentation Where both the debtor and the creditor were engaged in a property flipping scheme, the creditor’s reliance on the debtor’s misrepresentations was not reasonable, and the debt can be discharged in bankruptcy. “It is also true ...

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