Category: Consumer Bankruptcy

  • Postpetition Asset Sales in Chapter 13s–Modification, Not Estate Property

    Posted by

    Bob Lawless

    Debtors selling houses during a chapter 13 continues to cause conceptual problems for the courts. A recent decision, In re Marsh, from Judge Fenimore in Kansas City is an example. (Hat tip to Bill Rochelle for flagging this decision in his DailyWire column from the American Bankruptcy Institute ($). If you are a bankruptcy lawyer and don't get this column in your inbox each morning, you are missing out.) Judge Fennimore's opinion is a good point of departure to discuss why I don't think these conceptual problems are as difficult as lawyers make it out to be.

    In the case at hand, the debtors scheduled the value of their home at $140,000. Between the $125,000 mortgage and a $15,000 homestead exemption, there was no value for unsecured creditors. The debtor confirmed a plan that provided for payment of the mortgage through the trustee, known as a "conduit plan." Although the debtor was below-median income and qualified for a three-year plan, the debtor opted to do a five-year plan, presumably to make it easier to cure the mortgage arrearage. The plan specified that unsecured creditors were to receive no distribution.

    Forty-three months into the case the debtors filed a motion to sell the home for $210,000, which the court approved and which generated about $78,000 in cash after payment of the mortgage and fees. The debtor filed a "motion to retain" the cash. The chapter 13 trustee resisted, noting the cash would pay unsecured creditors in full.

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  • DOJ and DOE New Guidelines for Supporting Student Loan Discharge in Bankruptcy = More Student Loan Discharges?

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    The Department of Justice, in coordination with the Department of Education, has announced a new process for its handling of bankruptcy cases in which debtors seek an undue hardship student loan discharge. This new guidance has been a long time coming. In 2016, the DOE issued a request for information regarding evaluating undue hardship claims. Slipster Dalié Jiménez and I (along with co-authors) submitted a response that urged the DOE to establish clear, easy-to-verify circumstances under which it would support (or not object to) debtors' requests for student loan discharges. Subsequently we published articles expanding on and updating our proposals, always focusing on how the DOE could craft guidelines that would provide specific, objective criteria for when the DOE would not object to a requested discharge, thereby removing the guess work from discharge requests, and hopefully encouraging the filing of more student loan discharge adversary proceedings.

    The new guidelines will go a long way in helping people obtain student loan discharges. They incorporate key aspects of what consumer advocates and academics have highlighted as important to promote discharges for people who will benefit from student debt relief. I predict that, over time, more consumer debtors will request and receive undue hardship discharges.

    In short, the new process requires the debtor to submit an attestation form with information that will allow the DOJ and DOE to assess the three prongs of the Brunner test. At first glance, this may seem like a rehashing of the Brunner standard, thus providing the DOJ and DOE with significant wiggle-room to decide whether to support discharge. But upon digging into the requirements to meet each prong, it becomes more clear that the DOJ and DOE, overall, has adopted clear, objective criteria for its decision-making. This should provide debtors and attorneys with confidence in how the DOJ and DOE will respond to student loan discharge requests. Details about how the DOJ and DOE will handle assessing each of the prongs, plus some ruminations on how this guidance may play out, after the break.

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  • Fake and Real People in Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    This draft essay, Fake and Real People in Bankruptcy, just posted on SSRN, is considerably less far along than Unbundling Business Bankruptcy Law, posted last week. Fake and Real starts with a Third Circuit case that tends to be less well known: it upheld the dismissal of an individual bankruptcy filer whose primary asset was a home he had built with his own hands. Perhaps you will find that story relevant to current debates about what is permissible in large chapter 11 cases. Like Unbundling Business Bankruptcy Law, Fake and Real reflects some of my in-depth research on The Weinstein Company.  

    Here is the abstract: 

    This draft essay explores how the bankruptcy system is structurally biased in favor of artificial persons – for-profit companies, non-profit enterprises, and municipalities given independent life by law – relative to humans. The favorable treatment extends to foundational issues such as the scope and timing of permissible debt relief, the conditions to receiving any bankruptcy protections, and the flexibility to depart from the Bankruptcy Code by asserting that doing so will maximize economic value. The system's bias contributes to the "bad-apple-ing" of serious policy problems, running counter to other areas of law have deemed harms like discrimination to be larger institutional phenomena. These features also make bankruptcy a less effective partner in the broader policy project of deterring, remedying, and punishing enterprise misconduct.

  • Personal Insolvency in Asia and Currency Comparison

    Posted by

    Jason Kilborn

    While Shenzhen has gotten all the good press since its March launch of the first personal bankruptcy regime in Mainland China, a number of other Asian regimes have also been on the move. I recently examined the rapidly developing personal insolvency system in Singapore, and others have done great work on the unique processes in Japan and Korea. As an outsider, I struggle to capture the real feeling of life under these procedures. The challenge is expressed brilliantly by my favorite article on the difficulty of examining legal phenomena that are utterly foreign to the examiner, a paper that sought to answer the question "what was it like to try a rat?" This struggle is particularly acute in a new paper I've just posted on the fascinating evolution of Shenzhen's new law from its roots in a little-known 2008 consumer insolvency law in Taiwan. The Taiwan law is still in effect, of course (as amended in important respects), and the rocky experience of its first decade offers important lessons for personal insolvency policymakers in Asia and beyond. In both Taiwan and Shenzhen, a potential continuing challenge that intrigues me is among the most important and impactful in any such law–the measure of "necessary" household expenses to be budgeted to debtors for the purgatory period of three years (in Taiwan, it's six!) preceding a discharge. Both Taiwan and Shenzhen chose the social assistance minimum income; basically, the poverty level. Taiwan recently increased this by 20% after years of criticism of forcing bankrupt debtors into the extreme austerity of living within these tight budgets. Shenzhen has decided not to go beyond the poverty level, at least for now.

    Expressing the strictures of these poverty levels in useful comparative terms is really difficult for me. Official exchange rates are quite misleading when the question is "what is it like to try to make do on X [local currency units] for three years in [X country]?" Purchasing power parity exchange rates likely get closer to the mark, but with China, I'm not even sure that approach captures the pain (or ease) that debtors in the "discharge examination period" must endure. The figures I'm wrestling with are 1950 yuan in Shenzhen and about 18,000 new Taiwan dollars (15,000 x 1.2) in Taipei (less in the outlying areas). I vaguely understand these to correspond to about US$465 and US$600, respectively, per month, but this just seems untenable to me. How could anyone survive on these amounts for 36 months in Shenzhen or 72 months in Taipei? Granted, both sets of figures are per person, so a debtor caring for parents and/or children might end up with several multiples of these figures per month, but even then, supporting a family of four on US$1860 per month for three years in a major city like Shenzhen still strikes me as so austere as to dissuade people from seeking relief. Am I just out of touch with the reality of modern financial struggles generally (I know some low-income Americans also strain to make ends meet on somewhat similar budgets), or am I not understanding something about life in big-city China, or are the figures just not reflecting the feeling of life within these limits? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

  • The Department of Education Can Help With Student Loans in Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    With the Second Circuit's decision last week regarding private student loans, student loan discharge in bankruptcy is in the news. As Slipster Adam Levitin blogged, the "big picture" effect of this decision–and the 5th and 10th Circuits–is unclear. They could affect a broad swath of private student loans and they possibly could bring more bankruptcy filings to deal with a portion of people's student loan debt. Regardless, though, federal student loans remain presumptively non-dischargeable.

    If the people who file bankruptcy with both private and federal student loans (which, I suspect, likely is many people with student loans), debtors will need to bring undue hardship discharge requests. A possible additional effect of these decisions may be to increase undue hardship requests, provided that debtors and attorneys think they are worth making. Research by Jason Iuliano (Utah Law) suggests that debtors may be more successful in these actions than the general public or even many consumer bankruptcy attorneys presume.

    For federal students loans, the Department of Education plays a crucial role in undue hardship discharge requests. I recently published an essay in Minnesota Law Review Headnotes, co-authored with Aaron Ament and Daniel Zibel, who co-founded the National Student Legal Defense Network, regarding how the Ed Department should update its internal guidance for determining whether to contest a borrower’s request for an undue hardship discharge. The Ed Department presently seems to be wasting resources going after debtors with little ability to repay, regardless of whether their student loans are discharged. In the essay, we provide two options for how the Department can update its approach to bankruptcies to ensure that it calibrates its actions to make the promise of a fresh start more real for student borrowers.

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  • Second Circuit Holds Many Private Student Loans Are Dischargeable in Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    The 2d Circuit this week joined the 5th and 10th Circuits in holding that the discharge exception in 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(8)(A)(ii) for “an obligation to repay funds received as an educational benefit, scholarship, or stipend” doesn’t cover private student loans, only things like conditional grants (e.g., a ROTC grant that has to be repaid if the student doesn’t enlist). It’s another important student loan decision. At this point ever circuit to weigh in on the issue has said that private student loans aren’t covered under 523(a)(8)(A)(ii).  Instead, a private student loan, if it’s going to be non-dischargeable, would have to fit under 523(a)(8)(B), but that provision doesn’t cover all private student loans. It only covers “qualified educational loans,” which are loans solely for qualified higher education expenses (itself a defined term).

    In this case, the debtor alleged that the loan was not made solely to cover his cost of attending college, and the loan was disbursed to him directly. The creditor, Navient, did not claim that the loan qualified as a “qualified educational loan,” and instead relied on the 523(a)(8)(A)(ii) exception.The Second Circuit wasn’t having any of it.

    So what does this mean big picture?

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  • Bankruptcy on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    Bankruptcy LWT - 1The consumer bankruptcy system has made it to late-night television! The main segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver this week focused on bankruptcy. As described: "John Oliver details why people file for bankruptcy, how needlessly difficult the process can be, and the ways we can better serve people struggling with debt." Twenty minutes about consumer bankruptcy!

    Per usual, it's a well-researched, understandable, and fast-moving segment, with dashes of dark humor. My favorite references Julianne Moore's character in Magnolia. To the well-research part: It is supported by a host of papers about consumer bankruptcy, including the work of several current and former Slipsters. Among them is Portraits of Bankruptcy Filers (forthcoming Georgia Law Review), the most recent article based on Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP) data, co-authored with Slipster Bob Lawless and former Slipster Debb Thorne. In Portraits, we rely on data from 2013 to 2019 to describe who is using the bankruptcy system, providing the first comprehensive overview of bankruptcy filers in thirty years.   

    Also referenced are Life in the Sweatbox, former Slipster Angela Littwin's The Do-It Yourself Mirage: Complexity in the Bankruptcy System, Slipster Bob Lawless, Jean Braucher, and Dov Cohen's Race, Attorney Influence, and Bankruptcy Chapter Choice, and the ABI Commission on Consumer Bankruptcy's report. The segment closes by highlighting the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020 (and includes a bonus at the end, which you'll have to watch to find out what that's about).

  • 74 Law Professors Sign Letter in Support of the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) introduced the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020 (CBRA). As Slipster Adam Levitin detailed, the CBRA proposes a single chapter structure designed to streamline the consumer bankruptcy process. This morning, 74 bankruptcy and consumer law professors sent to Senator Warren a letter in support of the CBRA.

    As the letter states, the signatories support the CBRA because it "provides a thoughtful, workable, and comprehensive response to the problems that plague the current consumer bankruptcy system." Before I discuss the letter further, a disclosure: I spearheaded this letter and circulated it among bankruptcy and consumer law scholars for signature.

    In detailing our support of the CBRA, the letter points out the key ways in which the current consumer bankruptcy system can fail to provide effective relief and can shut people out because they cannot afford an attorney. Adam's recent post discusses research about substantial regional differences in the use of bankruptcy and the disparate use of chapter 13 by Black households–and the consequences of these differences on bankruptcy's uniformity and on access to justice. The CBRA will simplify the filing process, reduce fees, and address racial and gender disparities. Its new chapter 10 will allow people to address their most pressing concerns, whether that be keeping homes, keeping cars, staying in rental property, or discharging debts. It also provides for a discharge of student loan debt. And it addresses debt collection in bankruptcy cases by expanding the FDCPA and giving the CFPB some supervision and enforcement authority in consumer bankruptcy cases.

    Importantly, as noted at the end of the letter, the new single chapter is not a free ride. People who can pay will not be able to walk away from their obligations. Overall, the CBRA will address systemic issues and other problems that plague the current consumer bankruptcy system. Find the full letter from law professors here.

  • The Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    Today Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and David Cicilline (D-RI) introduced the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020. This is the first major consumer bankruptcy reform legislation to be introduced since the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). Whereas BAPCPA introduced a number of major, but targeted reforms to consumer bankruptcy law (and also a few business bankruptcy provisions as well), the CBRA is a much more ambitious bill:  it proposes a wholesale reform of the structure of consumer bankruptcy law with an eye toward reduces the costs and frictions that prevent consumers from being able to address their debts in bankruptcy.

    This is a long post with an extended overview of the bill. The bill's sponsors have a one-page version or a two-page summary, but I figure you're here at the Slips because you just can't get enough bankruptcy law, and we're happy to oblige. Let me start with a disclosure, though. I was privileged to provide assistance with the bill, along with several other Slipsters. That means I know what's in it, and I think it's a really good and important piece of legislation that I hope will become law. 

    A New Chapter 10 for Consumer Bankruptcy (Eliminating Consumer 7s and Chapter 13) 

    Whereas consumer bankruptcy has long existed in two primary flavors—liquidations (chapter 7) and repayment plans (chapter 13)—the CBRA proposes a single chapter structure (a new chapter 10).  Under the CBRA, individual debtors would no longer be eligible for chapter 7, and chapter 13 would be repealed in its entirety. All individual debtors with debts of less than $7.5 million would be eligible for chapter 10; those with larger debts would have to file for 11 (or 12 if they qualify).  It's important to keep this structure in mind when evaluating the CBRA. While the CBRA takes elements from chapters 7 and 13, the CBRA is not trying to replicate existing 7 or 13. That means if you come to CBRA with a mindset of "wait, that's not how we do it in 13," well, yeah, that's kind of the point. 

    The CBRA is a huge bill (188-pages) with a lot of provisions. In addition to the new chapter 10, it also contains amendments to numerous provisions in chapters 1, 3, and 5 of the Bankruptcy Code, as well to certain federal consumer financial protection statutes. I'm not going to try to cover everything in detail, but I want to cover how chapter 10 would work, as well as some of the highlights from other provisions. This is a very long post, but I think it's important for there to be a clear statement of how chapter 10 would work because there will undoubtedly be some misinterpretations of the bill, and I'd like to see consideration of the bill be on its actual merits.  

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  • For Your Bankruptcy Class or Presentation

    Posted by

    Bob Lawless

    Bankruptcy Opt-Out StatesOK, bankruptcy mavens. What is this a map of? Answer below the fold.

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