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Financial stability is a key aspect of a secure life, yet many find themselves in precarious situations due to certain common mistakes. If you’re afraid to fall into the empty pits of a wallet, you’re not alone. In fact, According to s the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, bankruptcy filings totaled 418,724 in the ending filing year of June 2023. There’s ways to prevent a lonely bank account, but the only way to prevent a crash is to know the warning signs ahead.….Continue reading…
Source: GoBankingRates
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The principal focus of modern insolvency legislation and business debt restructuring practices no longer rests on the elimination of insolvent entities, but on the remodeling of the financial and organizational structure of debtors experiencing financial distress so as to permit the rehabilitation and continuation of the business.
For private households, it is important to assess the underlying problems and to minimize the risk of financial distress to recur. It has been stressed that debt advice, a supervised rehabilitation period, financial education and social help to find sources of income and to improve the management of household expenditures must be equally provided during this period of rehabilitation (Refiner et al., 2003; Gerhardt, 2009; Frade, 2010).
In most EU member States, debt discharge is conditioned by a partial payment obligation and by a number of requirements concerning the debtor’s behavior. In the United States (US), discharge is conditioned to a lesser extent. The spectrum is broad in the EU, with the UK coming closest to the US system (Reifner et al., 2003; Gerhardt, 2009; Frade, 2010). The Other Member States do not provide the option of a debt discharge.
Spain, for example, passed a bankruptcy law (ley concurs) in 2003 which provides for debt settlement plans that can result in a reduction of the debt (maximally half of the amount) or an extension of the payment period of maximally five years (Gerhardt, 2009), but it does not foresee debt discharge.
In the US, it is very difficult to discharge federal or federally guaranteed student loan debt by filing bankruptcy. Unlike most other debts, those student loans may be discharged only if the person seeking discharge establishes specific grounds for discharge under the Brunner test, under which the court evaluates three factors:
- If required to repay the loan, the borrower cannot maintain a minimal standard of living;
- The borrower’s financial situation is likely to continue for most or all of the repayment period; and
- The borrower has made a good faith effort to repay the student loans.
Even if a debtor proves all three elements, a court may permit only a partial discharge of the student loan. Student loan borrowers may benefit from restructuring their payments through a Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan, but few qualify for discharge of part or all of their student loan debt.
Bankruptcy fraud is a white-collar crime most typically involving concealment of assets by a debtor to avoid liquidation in bankruptcy proceedings. It may include filing of false information, multiple filings in different jurisdictions, bribery, and other acts.
While difficult to generalize across jurisdictions, common criminal acts under bankruptcy statutes typically involve concealment of assets, concealment or destruction of documents, conflicts of interest, fraudulent claims, false statements or declarations, and fee fixing or redistribution arrangements. Falsifications on bankruptcy forms often constitute perjury.
Multiple filings are not in and of themselves criminal, but they may violate provisions of bankruptcy law. In the U.S., bankruptcy fraud statutes are particularly focused on the mental state of particular actions.Bankruptcy fraud is a federal crime in the United States.
Bankruptcy fraud should be distinguished from strategic bankruptcy, which is not a criminal act since it creates a real (not a fake) bankruptcy state. However, it may still work against the filer.
All assets must be disclosed in bankruptcy schedules whether or not the debtor believes the asset has a net value. This is because once a bankruptcy petition is filed, it is for the creditors, not the debtor, to decide whether a particular asset has value. The future ramifications of omitting assets from schedules can be quite serious for the offending debtor.
In the United States, a closed bankruptcy may be reopened by motion of a creditor or the U.S. trustee if a debtor attempts to later assert ownership of such an “unscheduled asset” after being discharged of all debt in the bankruptcy. The trustee may then seize the asset and liquidate it for the benefit of the (formerly discharged) creditors.
Whether or not a concealment of such an asset should also be considered for prosecution as fraud or perjury would then be at the discretion of the judge or U.S. Trustee. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, bankruptcy is limited to individuals; other forms of insolvency proceedings (such as liquidation and administration) are applied to companies. In the United States, bankruptcy is applied more broadly to formal insolvency proceedings.
In some countries, such as in Finland, bankruptcy is limited only to companies and individuals who are insolvent are condemned to de facto indentured servitude or minimum social benefits until their debts are paid in full, with accrued interest except when the court decides to show rare clemency by accepting a debtors application for debt restructuring, in which case an individual may have the amount of remaining debt reduced or be released from the debt.
In France, the cognate French word banqueroute is used solely for cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, whereas the term faillite (cognate of “failure”) is used for bankruptcy in accordance with the law. A typical proposal would involve a debtor making monthly payments for a maximum of five years, with the funds distributed to their creditors.
Even though most proposals call for payments of less than the full amount of the debt owing, in most cases, the creditors accept the deal—because if they do not, the next alternative may be personal bankruptcy, in which the creditors get even less money. The creditors have 45 days to accept or reject the consumer proposal. Once the proposal is accepted by both the creditors and the Court, the debtor makes the payments to the Proposal
Administrator each month (or as otherwise stipulated in their proposal), and the general creditors are prevented from taking any further legal or collection action. If the proposal is rejected, the debtor is returned to his prior insolvent state and may have no alternative but to declare personal bankruptcy.
A consumer proposal can only be made by a debtor with debts to a maximum of $250,000 (not including the mortgage on their principal residence). If debts are greater than $250,000, the proposal must be filed under Division 1 of Part III of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. An Administrator is required in the Consumer Proposal, and a Trustee in the Division I Proposal (these are virtually the same although the terms are not interchangeable).
A Proposal Administrator is almost always a licensed trustee in bankruptcy, although the Superintendent of Bankruptcy may appoint other people to serve as administrators. In 2006, there were 98,450 personal insolvency filings in Canada: 79,218 bankruptcies and 19,232 consumer proposals.
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