Oklahoma Bankruptcy Law Review
What Does a Successful Chapter 13 Look Like?
Chapter 13, you got to keep it up for those five years. You got some things out of your control to contend with, mortgage payment changes as any homeowner knows. It's usually a result of the insurance on your home changing. All of a sudden your payment usually is up. Occasionally it can go down, but those hit, and if they're big enough, they can shake up the terms of a plan. If you're already at your max of 60 months, that can be trouble. Read more »How Does Chapter 13 Help You?
If you're coming into a mountain of debt, either making too much to do a 7. For example, in Oklahoma, if you're over mid forties per person, if you're one person household, then you might be looking at a 13. Or if you're losing your home or vehicle and you want to keep it, you've got to do a 13, and that's where those powers come in. So with all the chapters, the automatic stays, the big one, creditors can't talk to you, touch you, do anything except through their attorneys, through the bankruptcy court proceeding. So you get breathing room.
Read more »What’s a Good Candidate for a Chapter 13?
Chapter 13 is for the person who makes too much money to do a Chapter 7, and the person needs to save their home and/or vehicle, or other secured property, that they're losing through foreclosure or repossession. Read more »Who Can Benefit From the New Chapter 11 Small Business Reorganization?
Here's the benefits that you can get. And there's additional benefits from the CARES Act. You can have up to 7 million in debt, 5 million more than you normally would, and still be able to utilize the Small Business Reorganization Act. Which is a huge difference in a Chapter 11, only you, the business, get to even propose a plan and you can get the trustee to go with it. Read more »Does the Cares Act Affect Bankruptcy?
Oklahoma Bankruptcy Attorney Edward Kelley here, answering your bankruptcy questions with oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro. Been talking a lot about Small Business Reorganization Act and all the wonderful opportunities that provides for small businesses right now doing chapter 11. And it got me thinking about the CARES Act, which had some impact on that in upping the debt limit under which you can qualify as a small business. Read more »Who Qualifies for the Small Business Reorganization Act Streamlined Procedure?
This expands chapter 11 protection to make it easier for small businesses to access that. And the cap basically, as far as the size of your business, the cap is a function of your debt. So typically in chapter 11's multi, multi multimillion of dollars debt, which the cap in a SBRA, Business Chapter 11, it's called a sub chapter five specifically, it's about $2.7 million. Now bear in mind another COVID benefit that expanded the cap up to almost $7 million, but generally to qualify for SBRA and that's all I want to talk about this morning, who can do it, the question is how much debt have you got and what kind is it? Read more »Major Change in the Small Business Reorganization Act!
Chapter 11 is specifically for a business and specifically for a business to reorganize and continue operating while it works out its debts. Of course, this requires good management, assets, and creditors that'll work with you. Because typically in a chapter 11, your creditors have almost as much say as you do in how your business is going to be run. You're what's called a "debtor in possession." Read more »Small Business Reorganization Act Makes It Easier in a Chapter 11
So now under these Small Business Reorganization Act, Chapter 11 has a new provision specifically for small businesses. So how does it help? That's what this first video will go through. Well normally your plan so to speak, whereby you plan to reorganize, is either made in conjunction with your creditors, the creditor committee so to speak, which is an actual thing, which has to approve it. Read more »How Do I Save My House From Foreclosure and Bankruptcy?
How do I save my house from foreclosure and bankruptcy? Well, in order to do so, you've got to do a chapter 13, not a chapter seven. Obviously you're not going to liquidate when you're trying to hold on to the property. So let's say, for example, you are $10,000 behind. Well, you know what, for argument's sake, let's say you're 60,000 behind. That'll make it a little easier. In your normal chapter 13, which, actually, due to COVID, can be extended a little bit longer to make it easier, up to 72 months, normally you have a 60-month maximum time to pay off all of your secured debt for property that you want to keep, if you follow me. Your unsecured debt, doesn't matter how much you pay. Read more »COVID-19 Spike Leads to an Ideal Time to File Bankruptcy
It seems pretty clear that COVID-19 is spiking again. So we may be probably will be extending the telephone hearings. Your income may drop again. So I just want to reiterate the points. If one silver lining, if you've been wanting to file bankruptcy, particularly chapter seven, or even need a lower payment than chapter 13, when you looked at, if you looked at it before and it was just too much. If your income has dropped through this COVID, most people aren't getting overtime unless they're in certain essential positions. And the future is uncertain. Read more »Chapter 7 Is the Easiest to Be Successful
It doesn't require much effort on your part other than taking your credit counseling classes before and after filing, giving me the information that I need, showing up at your creditor meeting, or in this case now calling into your creditor meeting and signing any reaffirmations that you need to get. Read more »The Bountiful Benefits of a Chapter 7
As soon as you file, nobody can garnish you. Nobody can proceed in court against you. Nobody can even call you. So you get that breathing room and you get them off your back. So garnishment is typically the big thing with a Chapter 7 person that enables them to now succeed. Read more »Who’s a Good Candidate for a Chapter 7?
There's income requirements for Chapter 7. If you make too much money, you can't do it. For example, in Oklahoma now, it's in the forties. It's not a hard line, if you have expenses. If you make too much, but you have expenses valid that pull you down, you can still make it. Read more »Why Its a Great Time to File for Bankruptcy
It looks like COVID-19 might be going away, but if your experience or perception is anything like mine, this may be coming and going in waves. Of course, I don't want to say anything I don't know to be true. Not entirely sure there's been a spike or not a spike. But a few places have decided not to open so soon or to close back up, or at least that's the rumor I hear. So this thing may be going on a little longer than we expected. May not. But if it does, remember, this is probably for many people the best time to file a Chapter 7 they're going to find. Income's down, you could do it all by telephone and get it done quick. Read more »The Power of Redemption: Pay off Your Car in Bankruptcy With Your Stimulus Check!
If you file now, this may be really helpful to you. Because of the stimulus, maybe a second round or the SBA loans or Paycheck Protection Program, if your income has gone down or if you're below the cutoffs for Chapter 7, which again, you're in the 40s for one person, you just figure, add about 9,000 on top for each other member of your household, the gross income, you fit in there now, and you've got a car note and you owe a lot more than what it's worth. There's a power in a Chapter 7 that isn't used a lot, but it's quite something, and it's called a redemption. Read more »What Does a Successful Chapter 11 Look Like?
To have a successful Chapter 11 it's going to come down to the realism of the assessment in the beginning. Can this business be turned around? The questions there are, do we have any assets? Do we have any demand for our product or service? Do we have creditors who will still work with us? Do we have the human resources that we need to be successful? Read more »What Kind of Help Can Chapter 11 Provide?
A chapter 11 has the most participation by your creditors by far, and also by the trustee. You are what's called a debtor in possession. So you are running the day to day operations of your business under the authority and supervision of not only the trustee, but essentially your creditors who get to have a recognized creditor committee and work with you and have to approve eventually your chapter 11 plan. Read more »Who Qualifies for a Chapter 11?
This is meant for a business, that's the purpose of a chapter 11, and it's meant for a business that has a chance for success. So, unfortunately if you have a business that simply isn't going to see any daylight, you are going to go to tremendous expense and trouble for a chapter 11 that probably ultimately won't succeed. Read more »The Dynamics of an Oklahoma Chapter 11
The dynamic here is basically the committee of creditors, and as I said sometimes creditors can involuntarily force a company into a chapter 11 if they are in effect ignoring their insolvency. But the dynamic is basically, can the company conduct its operations in such a way that a partial or total discharge of some of its debts will benefit enough of the creditors who can get more of a return on their outstanding debt than they would get if the company simply dissolved and the assets were subject to attachment for judgments. Read more »The Initial Stages of an Oklahoma Chapter 11
So in order for a business to file, and it doesn't necessarily file all this at once, it will file its petition for Chapter 11 relief and the documents that will need to be filed at some point to support that are going to be assets and liabilities, list of all contracts and leases, income and expenditures, the basic financial documents. Read more »