Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

Small businesses and family-owned businesses can be great investments for many people in Oak Park. However, like individuals and other larger businesses, small businesses can struggle with debt. Small businesses and family-owned operations can have trouble making payments on business debts, and they can amass credit card debt that amounts to much more than the revenue that the business is bringing in. When a business is having a lot of financial trouble, many people assume that the business can file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that the owner (or owners) can protect their personal property and personal financial history even though the business may have to close. However, there are some situations in which a business bankruptcy is actually more like a consumer bankruptcy. More precisely, for businesses that are structured as sole proprietorships, business bankruptcy is actually consumer bankruptcy . We will say more about how this works, and why t...

If you are struggling with student loan debt, you may know that it can be extremely difficult to discharge student loans through personal bankruptcy . Debtors typically need to show that continuing to make payments on their student loans would constitute an “undue hardship,” and it can be tough to meet this burden. For quite some time now, consumer protection advocates have been pushing for a change when it comes to consumer bankruptcy rules and student loan debt. According to a recent article in U.S. News & World Report , “momentum is building for new rules that would make it easier to discharge federal student loans during bankruptcy.” What should consumers know about possible changes to consumer bankruptcy rules? Proposed Legislation Aims to Broaden Undue Hardship Test Currently, the undue hardship test is difficult for many consumers to pass in order to qualify for a discharge of their student loan debt in bankruptcy. In order to make bankruptcy an opti...

Whether you are a consumer in Oak Park or elsewhere in Chicagoland, it is important to know how to protect yourself from debt collectors, whether they are legitimate debt collectors who are engaging in practices that violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) or scam debt collectors. According to a recent article in Forbes , more and more consumers are facing harassment from debt collection companies—both real and fraudulent—in efforts by those collectors to obtain money. Many of those consumers simply do not owe the debts for which they are being contacted, while other consumers do owe debts but are being treated unfairly by the collection companies. The Forbes article addresses the prevalence of debt collection fraud and harassment , and discusses some of the ways that consumers can protect themselves. Protecting Yourself from Debt Collection Scams One of the reasons that debt collection scams work is that many of the consumers being targeted do a...

Nobody in Oak Park wants to think about the prospect of a spouse’s death and how it will affect their lives emotionally, psychologically, and also financially. However, some couples need to consider such issues due to health concerns, or because they are thinking about filing for bankruptcy . We want to address some of the ways in which a spouse’s death can affect personal bankruptcy proceedings. For example, if a couple has thousands of dollars of debt that has been accrued by only one spouse, does that debt go away upon the spouse’s death? If a couple files for Chapter 13 bankruptcy together and one of the spouses passes away, how does the court handle that Chapter 13 repayment plan? We will discuss a couple of different situations that can arise when married couples accumulate debt and file for bankruptcy. Marital Debt and the Consumer Bankruptcy Option A recent article in the Los Angeles Times posed this question: What happens when one spouse has a termina...

Can local governments play a role in stopping harmful debt collection practices to help lower income families? According to a recent article in American Banker , correcting some of the present problems with the debt-collection system in the U.S. may involve local governments. More specifically, according to the article, “consumer advocates are urging local governments and courts to improve their debt-collection systems to take into account the ability of low-income households to pay fines or court costs related to traffic violations or other infractions.” While certain fines are unlikely on their own to lead a family to seek protection by filing for consumer bankruptcy , even small debts can add up quickly. If local governments could find a way to account for the financial difficulties faced by lower income families when assessing certain fines and fees, more families may be able to deal with their debts. In the event that debt does become too difficult to manage, an Oak ...