Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was designed to protect consumers against unscrupulous financial tactics. According to the CFPB’s website , it came into existence through the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which created the CFPB in 2010. Since its inception, the CFPB has aimed to prevent many of the harms that resulted in the financial crisis of the earlier 2000s, including the use of unfair loan agreements from banks and deceptive or fraudulent debt collection practices that target consumers. In the last couple of years, however, consumer safety advocates have been worried about the limitations being placed on the CFPB. According to a recent article in Value Walk , consumer safety advocates from across the country are urging the new CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger, to ensure that the CFPB does its job to protect consumers in the new year. Consumer Safety Advocates Urge Kraninger to Protect Consumers La...

If you are carrying a significant balance on your credit cards, you may not be alone with your debt struggles . But just because more Americans are carrying more credit card debt does not mean that living with revolving balances is a long-term solution to your financial problems. According to a recent article in Nerd Wallet , with rising interest rates, more people who carry substantial revolving balances may find their credit card bills even more difficult to manage. Since last year, revolving credit card balances across the country have risen by about 5% to $420.22 billion. For some of those debtors, filing for personal bankruptcy may be the best solution if paying off the credit card debt does not seem feasible. Average Credit Card Debt and Difficulty with Repayment According to the article, the average household in the U.S. carries a revolving credit balance of almost $7,000. Revolving balances refer to those balances that you do not pay off, but that you ca...

When we talk about the financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble, we often discuss it in the past tense—as something that occurred about a decade ago and is now over. However, many consumers in Oak Park, Illinois and across the country continue to struggle with debt , and many are still dealing with the lingering effects of the financial crisis. According to a recent article in Marketplace , seniors are having particular difficulty recovering from the economic collapse. Some are filing for personal bankruptcy , while others are attempting to live off of limited incomes while still making payments on debt. What debt relief options are available to older adults, and are those debt relief options different from those available to younger people? Lost Money in Retirement Accounts There are many reasons that seniors are struggling with their finances in the decade after the economic collapse, including those who saved significant amounts of money in reti...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) supervisory and enforcement authority is one of the ways that consumers in Oak Park, Illinois and throughout the country are protected by unfair and deceptive debt collection practices . However, according to a recent article in The Hill , the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill that aims to limit the CFPB’s power and the reach of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). What do debtors need to know about the bill and the ways it could affect debt collection practices in the U.S.? Limiting the Scope of the FDCPA and the CFPB We noted that the House bill could limit protections that are currently in place for consumers when it comes to debt collection. More specifically, the proposed legislation, H.R. 5082 or the Practice of Law Technical Clarification Act of 2018 , “would exempt debt collection attorneys from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and preclude the Bureau of Consumer Financial P...

When consumers struggle to repay debt, many turn to consumer bankruptcy as an option for relief. Some of those consumers file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy , which allows them to discharge most if not all debts and to get a fresh start, while others opt for Chapter 13 bankruptcy , which allows them to retain property while adhering to a repayment plan. We know that extensive individual consumer debt can lead to bankruptcy, but does a growing national consumer debt also suggest that more individuals will be filing for bankruptcy in the near future? Or does a rising national debt have different implications? According to a recent article from CNBC , the overall American debt is expected to reach $4 trillion by the end of 2018. Yet some commentators suggest a growing debt is not necessarily indicative of struggling consumers. American National Debt is Growing As the article explains, about five years ago the total consumer debt in the U.S. hit $3 trillion. By the end of...

When a consumer files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13 bankruptcy , there are certain types of debt that can not be discharged (or are non-dischargeable). When consumers in Oak Park think about non-dischargeable debts, they often consider debts related to spousal or child support, or tax debt. Yet it is important to understand that debt owed as a result of a personal injury lawsuit also may not be dischargeable if the damages award resulted from a drunk driving claim. To put it another way, if a consumer owes a significant amount of debt related to injuries she caused in a drunk driving accident, is that debt dischargeable? Does the answer to that question change if the debt is related to the consumer’s own medical expenses caused by a drunk driving accident that she caused? We want to answer these questions by discussing the way the U.S. Bankruptcy Code approaches debt discharges and drunk driving accidents. Bankruptcy Discharges for Drunk Driving Accident Verdi...