Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

If you own a small business and you are having significant debt problems, you might be considering how bankruptcy laws could help you to get back on track with your business finances. In particular, given the ways in which the COVID-19 emergency has impacted small businesses in Chicagoland and across the country, many small business owners are struggling to keep their doors open, and some are considering the possibility of bankruptcy. For businesses that are structured as sole proprietorships, it is important to work with an Oak Park bankruptcy lawyer who has experience handling consumer bankruptcy cases because these bankruptcies ultimately will be personal bankruptcies . Businesses that are sole proprietorships are in effect the same entity as the business owner. Accordingly, any debts of the business are also the personal debts of the business owner, and vice versa. This means that a sole proprietorship cannot, on its own, file for bankruptcy without affecting the personal fina...

If you are thinking about filing for bankruptcy and you own a small business, it is important to understand definitively whether your business bankruptcy case is likely to affect your personal finances. In other words, if you file for business bankruptcy, could you also be filing for personal bankruptcy? Or, if you file for business bankruptcy and have made a personal guarantee on a loan, what does that mean for your financial situation as a consumer? Could you ultimately need to file for personal bankruptcy in order to manage the debts associated with your business? A recent article in Fortune explains how many business debtors might not be thinking carefully about how a business bankruptcy could impact their personal situation. The following are some important facts you should consider as you make plans to speak with an Illinois bankruptcy lawyer. Business Bankruptcy for Sole Proprietors is the Same as Personal Bankruptcy Depending upon how your small business is structured, i...

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...