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Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Bankruptcy – Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island

Q: What Are the Potential Advantages of Bankruptcy? 
The filing of a bankruptcy case will immediately create an “automatic stay” that would protect the person filing the case from their creditors. In Chapter 7 most debts can be eliminated by the bankruptcy “discharge” and in a Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 case most debts can be cured, reduced and/or reorganized under a plan. Bankruptcy cases are overseen by a federal bankruptcy court that specifically has jurisdiction to administer bankruptcy cases and therefore there is a forum to go to if there are disputes or issues as to a case. However, creditors are generally respectful of the bankruptcy stay and discharge and will cease all collection efforts upon the filing of a case, and note the discharge on a person’s credit report.
A bankruptcy filing is often used as follows:
a) By individuals to eliminate overwhelming credit card debt, medical bills, and other types of debt;
b) By individuals or businesses to save their real property or house from foreclosure or to save their car or other assets from repossession;
c) By businesses, under a cash flow squeeze to obtain a “breathing spell” from their creditors in order to reorganize their financial affairs or to sell off assets;
d) By individuals or businesses to extend, resolve and/ or reorganize mortgage or real estate tax arrears or burdensome sales and withholding tax liability; and
e) By businesses to stop eviction from leased real property or repossession of leased equipment.
The above uses of bankruptcy are not exclusive and a bankruptcy case can be used for other purposes. However, an individual or business contemplating filing a bankruptcy case should carefully review their goals with a bankruptcy attorney since bankruptcy law can be complex. A bankruptcy attorney will be able to determine whether the above goals can be achieved depending upon the particular circumstances of a situation.
Q: Should I File for Bankruptcy?
A bankruptcy case becomes an option when a person or family is unable to pay its bills as they become due. If this is a temporary problem and it is possible to catch up with unpaid bills, a bankruptcy case may not be necessary. But if the problem persists and bills are falling further behind, than the bankruptcy option should be considered. When credit cards and other obligations are not paid for several months, they start to call and send letters demanding payment and threatening legal action. When creditors, after protracted efforts, are unable to get paid for monies owed, they turn over the delinquent account to collection attorneys who start litigation to obtain a judgment. This process usually occurs after five (5) months to one (1) year of payment delinquency. Therefore if you are overwhelmed with bills, and do not expect your finances to improve in the coming months, the bankruptcy option should be considered. If you have been in collections already and there are judgments threatened or already obtained against you, it is detrimental to your finances and to your credit rating to allow such difficulties to persist and a bankruptcy case becomes a strong option to protect one’s wages, bank accounts, assets and credit rating. The bankruptcy case will immediately protect the person filing from their creditors and help them to discharge or eliminate the vast majority of debts, such as credit cards, personal loans and hospital bills. In most cases the person filing will be able to keep their cars, home, bank accounts and other assets. Please call us to discuss whether a bankruptcy case will help you with your financial difficulties.
Whether or not to file for bankruptcy is a personal decision. However, there are many ways in which you can tell whether it is a strong option. Firstly, if your debts are overwhelming and clearly disproportionate to your income, bankruptcy should definitely be considered. Secondly, if you are presently vastly behind with your debts and see no way to catch up, once again, bankruptcy becomes a strong option. Thirdly, if you are barely current with your debts, but realize that you are juggling important bills, credit cards, mortgage payments, etc., bankruptcy should again be looked at as a possible option because you do not want lower priority debt, such as credit card bills, to interfere with higher priority debt such as mortgage and car payments. Lastly, if you realize that your payments are merely buying you time, that in the long run there is no way to take care of all the debt, and that your payments are being wasted on debt that will with time go bad anyway, than bankruptcy again should be considered. The best way to approach the issue is to seek a free consultation. Our office offers a free consultation by phone or in person at our Melville, Long Island law office, and we can certainly review with you your options and whether a bankruptcy case is the best way to proceed. Please call us at (631) 271-3737, or e-mail us at weiss@ny-bankruptcy.com for a free consultation to discuss your questions as to bankruptcy in greater detail.
Q: What Are My Options Other Than Bankruptcy?
>While filing for bankruptcy protection is often an option chosen by debtors in resolving serious financial problems, there are also non-bankruptcy options that may provide an alternative to a bankruptcy filing. Some of these options involve out of court negotiations, leading to  potential settlements or loan modifications with creditors. Other options entail litigation defense by answering the creditor’s complaint (within 20 or 30 days) and defending against a creditor’s pursuit of debt by either challenging the legitimacy of the debt or the methods by which the creditor has attempted to pursue the debt.
In some situations, non-bankruptcy options are available and preferable. However, a bankruptcy filing is often the most direct and powerful tool for a debtor to deal with serious financial problems. Nonetheless, it must be stressed that bankruptcy is not the solution for every problematic financial situation, and that in some cases, bankruptcy entails certain risks.
If your debts are primarily unsecured debts, like credit cards, negotiations with your credit cards, especially by a firm like ours that can otherwise file a bankruptcy case can be effective in lowering the debt.  Lump sum agreements give more of a discount than payment plans, but both can yield positive results. We can also litigate with unsecured creditors, especially when there is a potential dispute, or where we need additional time or leverage to reach a  positive settlement. Bankruptcy usually provides more certainty and immediacy in terms of a resolution of debt. However, negotiated agreements or litigation defense may be preferable when the client does not have a general debt problem, but only has issues one or two isolated creditors, or where a client may not qualify for bankruptcy (due to income or asset limitations in Chapter 7 or due to debt limitations in Chapter 13, as explained further below). Also, some clients may prefer to try to avoid bankruptcy, and negotiation options, even if not as effective as bankruptcy, can provide enough relief in their situations without the need for a bankruptcy filing. Our office generally negotiates most debts on behalf of our clients including credit card, tax, mortgage, and other debts.
Q: How Does a Bankruptcy Case Affect My Credit Report?
>Persons and businesses contemplating filing for bankruptcy protection are often undergoing serious financial problems that have already, or will shortly in the future, appear on their credit reports. While a bankruptcy filing would also appear on a person’s credit report, the bankruptcy filing has the advantage of dealing with and potentially solving some of the financial problems inherent in the situation. Therefore, after a bankruptcy filing, a person is often better situated to repay new creditors and in time can be a better credit risk than they were prior to the bankruptcy filing.
Any financial transactions in which you are engaged may affect your credit report. Most clients inquiring about bankruptcy already have many entries on their credit report which show that they are in financial hardship. Such entries have already affected the client’s credit and while the bankruptcy case will also indicate that the client had financial hardship, the bankruptcy case  will also ease the situation by helping  the client  eliminate the debt that is the cause of such  hardship. Essentially the client after having eliminating their overwhelming obligations in the bankruptcy case, can now concentrate on rebuilding their credit, which usually takes 6 months to 2 years. Although the notation that there was a bankruptcy filing will remain on the client’s credit report for 1o years, this is the same amount of time that any  judgment would remain on the credit report. Therefore, the difference between  judgments on your credit report and a bankruptcy filing on your credit report is that the bankruptcy filing says that you already eliminated your problematic debt obligations and that the financial hardship was in the past. A  judgment, on the other hand,  says that your debt obligation is ongoing, and that your situation may be too risky and uncertain for creditors to give you new credit. Therefore, to the extent that you have debt that is already  in collections or is about to be in arrears, a bankruptcy case, by eliminating or reorganizing problematic debt, can with time help you to  restore your credit by eliminating the source of  your financial hardship.
A bankruptcy attorney can advise persons filing for bankruptcy protection as to the methods by which they can rebuild their credit rating.
Q: Do I Qualify for Bankruptcy?
Chapter 7,  is the most frequently filed bankruptcy case because it “discharges” or eliminates debt. However Chapter 7 is not available for everyone since it has criteria which determine whether a client can and/or should file a case under Chapter 7. The main criteria is the income level of the client as determined by family size (or the number of dependents in a household), when compared to the median income for a family of that size in New York State. Means testing is designed to determine if a client above the median income for their household size in the State of New York qualifies to file a case based upon their necessary expenses as determined by their actual provable spending as capped by certain IRS standards used in such testing. The test looks at a client’s income, deductions and necessary expenses in the 6 months prior to filing the bankruptcy case. To qualify for Chapter 7 it is necessary to have negative disposable income under the means test. If a client has positive disposable income according to such test, they can still qualify for Chapter 13 relief, and perhaps pay a relatively small percentage of their debt over a 5 year plan, but they may not file for Chapter 7 at that time. Besides official, statutory limitations on the income level, Chapter 7 has other non-official limitations in terms of the equity in the client’s assets. While such equity is potentially protected by liens and exemptions, if there is a large amount of unprotected equity in a client’s assets, the client’s assets could potentially be at risk for a sale by the Chapter 7 trustee. Therefore, a client may not want to file under Chapter 7 if there is a large, exposed amount of equity in a potential asset.
Unlike Chapter 7, Chapter 13 is much more open to persons filing and does not have an official income or an unofficial asset value limitation. Chapter 13, allows an individual with positive disposable income and/or with equity in their assets to obtain bankruptcy relief under a 5 year Chapter 13 plan where the debt or a portion of the debt is paid without additional interest or charges by the creditor.  However, Chapter 13 has a limitation on the amount of secured debt (which cannot exceed $1.08 million), and unsecured debt (which cannot exceed $360,000.); however because such limitations are very high, they usually only affect persons investing in real estate, or in business, or who have unusually high mortgages. Persons affected by the debt limits of Chapter 13 case, can file in Chapter 11, which is designed to accommodate larger debt loads, for larger cases, usually filed by businesses.
Deciding which chapter of the bankruptcy code to use can in some cases require careful strategy with a bankruptcy attorney. Call us for a free consultation.
Q: How Do I Start?
Contact us for a consultation. We can give you advice by phone, in-person or by e-mail. We can discuss with you which legal options can help you and the fees for such services. If you decide to proceed to retain us for one of the legal options available to you, we will do an “intake” where we will discuss with you and obtain facts and documents from you pertaining to your situation. After the intake we would usually prepare the necessary legal documents and have you make arrangements to review and sign such documents. Shortly after the signing of the initial documents for the case, we will usually file such documents with the Court. The legal papers which start the bankruptcy case are the petition, schedules, statement of financial affairs, means test, creditors matrix, statement of intention and other documents that collectively give the Court, the trustee administering the case, and the debtor’s creditors disclosure as to the debtor’s financial affairs.
What Can the Law Office of Ronald D. Weiss, P.C. Do for Me?
The Law Office of Ronald D. Weiss, P.C. can represent individuals and businesses in matters pertaining to bankruptcy, creditor negotiations, reorganizations, real estate, foreclosure defense, litigation defense, and landlord-tenant defense. Our experience and knowledge in such areas will enhance the possibilities of success in such areas.
What Is the Best Way to Handle Creditors?
There are numerous ways to deal with creditors depending on your circumstances and the legal options that you may decide to pursue. After a bankruptcy filing creditors are completely stayed from pursuing debt. However there are other situations and circumstances, such as litigations and negotiations where contact with the creditor is a potential opportunity to negotiate. We can discuss with you the best way to deal with your creditors.
What Happens After Filing a Bankruptcy Case?
After the filing of a bankruptcy case all actions by creditors to pursue a debt are stayed. Essentially a significant part of the threat by a person’s creditors is eliminated after the bankruptcy filing. In all bankruptcy cases, a debtor and their attorney are required to attend a creditor’s meeting which takes place at the bankruptcy court where the client and their attorney are asked questions on the record by the bankruptcy trustee assigned to the case. In most cases the creditors meeting is held only once, but if the trustee needs to examine additional documents or has additional questions they can adjourn the creditors meeting for such purposes.  In a Chapter 7 case most debts will eventually be discharged after the trustee has had an opportunity to examine the debtors documents and information and to verify that there are no assets or potential issues in a case. To the extent there are potential asset or income questions in a Chapter 7 case, the closing of the case and the client’s discharge may be delayed. However, most Chapter 7 cases proceed to obtain a discharge order in 3 to4 months after their filing. In a Chapter 13 or 11 case because there is an attempt to reorganize debts, the case continues for some time until a confirmation hearing, which in a Chapter 13 case could be within several months of filing, but in a Chapter 11 case, may be much longer after the filing. For a Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 plan to be confirmed, by the trustee administering the case, and by the Court (and in Chapter 11 the creditors need to vote to accept the plan). If the debtor is unable to confirm a Chapter 13 or a Chapter 11 plan, the case is usually dismissed or converted to Chapter 7. If the plan is confirmed, the Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 debtor is now required to make regular monthly payments to all of its creditors who have valid claims in the case. Chapter 13 plans go on for 3 to 5 years and Chapter 11 plans can go on for longer.

What debts do bankruptcy cases resolve (discharge or reorganize) well? not well? not at all?

Adversary; tax; student loan; matrimonial; criminal; fraud;

When do I need a lawyer for a bankruptcy case? When is a good lawyer critical?

Yes just in case; but definitely for adversary, complex case, chapter 11

What kind of matters does a bankruptcy case stay?

Not matrimonial, see above for discharge.

Who/what is protected by the debtor’s bankruptcy?

Spouse? Co- D? Co asset? Co debt? 522f? C–D stay

Our consultations are free, the advice may be invaluable.

Please call us at (631) 271-3737, or e-mail us at weiss@ny-bankruptcy.com for a free consultation to discuss your questions as to bankruptcy in greater detail.