If you are struggling keeping your home you may want to look at a chapter 13 bankruptcy in Minnesota. A chapter 13 bankruptcy will allow you to keep your home while catching up on past due payments. You may even be able to strip off your homes second mortgage. The other benefit of a chapter 13 filing is that at the end of your plan payments you will also get rid of the remaining credit card and other unsecured debt. We help clients with chapter 13 bankruptcies every day. If you have questions give our office a call.
Loan Workout in Minnesota
May 8, 2012 By
If you are thinking about settling your debt in Minnesota it is important to keep tax consequences in mind when you are settling the debt. In most cases you are responsible for the phantom gains from debt settlement income. A good example of this is if you owe $20,000 on a credit card debt and you settle the debt for $10,000 the creditor can and probably will send you a 1099 form for $10,000. This means that you could owe additional money for the settled debt. The other thing to keep in mind when are settling debt is that you also should look at bankruptcy to see if one option is cheaper than the other.
If you decide to settle debt it should be a business decision and it should be the cheaper alternative to bankruptcy. The nice thing about debt settlement as opposed to bankruptcy is that you do not have a trustee looking over your property and debt settlement is not public. If you are having issues with debt give our office a call at 952-294-0144.
Home Sales Prices Rising In Minnesota
May 2, 2012 By
A recent report showed that home sales prices have stabilized in the Minneapolis St Paul region. It seems that we may be seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel of falling home prices. There is no guarantee these gains will stay once the banks begin to ramp up their foreclosures following the settlement with the states. It still seems like a good time to buy a home if you can qualify for the current interest rates and find a house at a good price.
Minneapolis Bankruptcy Court
April 18, 2012 By
If you are filing bankruptcy in the following Minnesota counties your case will be filed in Minneapolis, Carver, Anoka, Chippewa, Hennepin, Isanti, Kandiyohi, McLeod, Meeker, Renville, Sherburne, Stearns, Swift, Wright. If you case if filed in Minneapolis you 341 meeting will probably be held in either Minneapolis at the Federal Courthouse or in St Cloud at the Red Cross building. Once you get your notice of 341 meeting you will have the information on where your case will be held. If you have questions about your meeting you should talk to your Minnesota lawyer.
How To Prepare To File A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy In Minnesota
April 13, 2012 By
If you are thinking about filing for bankruptcy in Minnesota, you may need to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is generally required when your income exceeds the median income for the county you live in. If your income exceeds this median level, or you have other issues that require a chapter 13 bankruptcy, this article will help you plan for how to make it work. Of course you will need to talk to an experienced attorney who handles chapter 13 bankruptcy to determine the benefits of chapter 13 bankruptcy for your situation.
The first thing when filing for chapter 13 bankruptcy is to make sure you have reliable transportation to get to work. It is best to have a vehicle that will last the entire 5 years of your bankruptcy plan, with minimal repair expenses. You want to minimize these expenses, since you will be on a fixed budget for the five years of your plan. It is also important to have reliable transportation so you can continue to get to work, to make the money to fund your bankruptcy plan.
The next thing you may want to do is make sure you are contributing to your 401k plan at work. This is important because you do not want to neglect your retirement savings for the five years of the chapter 13 bankruptcy. The good guideline for a contribution is at what your employer will match with additional funds. Of course this is assuming that your budget will allow this contribution. Our office has had clients that did not have the free money to cover any expenses beyond their basic living expenses and the chapter 13 payment.
The final step is to make sure you have looked over your income and expenses carefully with the help of your attorney, to make sure you have accounted for all of your expenses. Generally you are allowed reasonable expenses for the term on your chapter 13 plan. Reasonable expenses can vary depending upon your circumstances, but need to be reviewed by your attorney to make sure all the expenses are legitimate. You may be forced to justify some of your expenses if the bankruptcy trustee thinks the expenses are high for a similar sized family.
This article just touches on a few basic tips for filings a chapter 13 bankruptcy. To give you more information you would need to contact our office at 952-294-0144 or find us online at www.bolinskelaw.com.
Aggressive Collections From Minneapolis and St Paul Area Credit Unions
April 4, 2012 By
In my practice some of the most aggressive collection activities comes from local credit unions. The credit unions are getting their clients to sign agreements that basically cross collateralize loans with bank accounts or other assets. In most cases my clients do not even know they have agreed to those terms when they are getting the loan. The other practice that credit unions employ is shutting down clients checking and savings accounts after they have filed for bankruptcy. This practice does not make sense unless they are attempting to punish people for filing for bankruptcy.
It is important for consumers to look over their loan documents carefully to make sure they are not cross collateralizing any of their assets in order to secure a loan with a credit union. I have even heard of some local credit unions taking back peoples cars if they do not sign reaffirmation agreements. In many cases this is doing the client a favor, since the car they are taking back is underwater. In these cases the credit union has decided to take back a car worth less than the loan, sell that car at auction and take a huge loss. The alternative is my client continues to pay on the car loan, and the credit union recovers the full value of the loan, over the course of the payments. In some cases the credit unions may have better rates than banks, but I have seen much more aggressive collections from these credit unions. Some of the credit unions seem to take any bankruptcy filing personally and attempt to punish their former clients. We generally advise our clients to avoid credit unions if they are filing for bankruptcy protection.
Minneapolis Housing Prices and Rents
March 28, 2012 By
The housing market while still trending downward seems to be improving in the Minneapolis area. It seems that we are seeing more houses selling and the drop in prices slowing. This could mean that a bottom is near for the housing market. Another factor that could be affecting home prices is low vacancy for apartments in the Twin Cities metro, that is causing rents to rise and become more expensive than home ownership.
The issue for many people when buying a house is that credit scores may not be good enough to qualify for a decent mortgage rate, forcing people to rent. The other factor is fear over the potential for further loses in the home market. It will be interesting to see what the rest of 2012 has in store for the Minneapolis housing market, to see if price decreases continue to slow, and home sales continue to increase. The biggest factor in home prices rebounding will be fewer foreclosures and short sales affecting property prices. Once the inventory of distressed properties is reduced it will allow prices to improve gradually.
TaxMasters Files For Bankruptcy Protection
March 22, 2012 By
TaxMasters and its affiliated companies recently filed for bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy filing comes after they were sued by the Minnesota Attorney General. The suit alleged that they misled consumers about the help that they could provide regarding tax debt. In many cases the firm charged up front fees of around $8,000 to negotiate tax debt on behalf of the IRS. The issue with charging the fee is that in many cases they did not do the actual work to resolve peoples tax issues. The fee that most of these people paid could have gone to a local tax professional who could have helped with their tax issues.
It all comes down to the fact that consumers need to be aware of who they choose to represent them when it comes time to settle tax debt, or credit card debt. It is important to make sure the company is reputable and will actually spend time working to resolve your case. If you are having debt issues give our office a call at 952-294-0144.
Consumer Complaints In Minnesota
March 13, 2012 By
If you are a consumer you have to be vigilant regarding your finances. This is true in most areas including credit cards, bank charges, defective goods or services. In most cases big companies rely on consumers not being aware of their rights or not enforcing their rights in order to give individuals poor service.
One of the most common area for hidden fees and expenses are from the financial industry including banks and credit card companies. If you do not look closely at your bank statements or credit card bills these companies could charge you a wide variety of fees including late fees, over the limit fees, minimum balance fees, crazy interest rates, bounced check fees (even if someone bounces a check to you) and some banks are charging fees to use a debit card.
In my case it is easier to enforce my rights as a consumer because I am a lawyer and am able to sue on my own behalf to get companies to honor their warranties or to get banks to reverse crazy charges, but for most people you cannot hire an attorney, since the attorney may charge more than the dispute. This is exactly what a lot of companies realize and is why they are able to offer bare minimum service. If you cannot afford to hire an attorney a good remedy is using social media to see if you can get companies to rectify your complaints. In most instances companies monitor these sites closely and will attempt to make you happy to avoid negative reviews of the social media sites. If that does not work you could always sue the company in small claims court.
Creditor Harassment in Minnesota
March 6, 2012 By
If you are experiencing creditor harassment in Minnesota you may have rights to sue the debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This act prohibits creditors from using abusive or profane language when attempting to collect a debt from you. It also sets limits on the number of contacts a creditor can have with you, and limits the hours that a creditor can call. If you have retained an attorney to represent you in Minnesota the creditor must contact the attorney and may not contact your directly, if the contact you after the know you are represented by an attorney they are in violation of the FDCPA. If you have been harassed by a creditor give our office a call to see how we can help you deal with your debt.
