The Bankruptcy Code is federal law. It affords debtors protections - including the automatic stay and debt discharge injunction - that hold creditors at bay.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) is also federal law. It contains limitations on what a debt collector can do when attempting to collect a debt.

Because debts - and more particularly attempts to collect those debts - drive people into bankruptcy, bankruptcy courts are sometimes forced to grapple with questions of how the Bankruptcy Code and FDCPA interact and impact each other.

Sixth Circuit Affirms Bankruptcy Court Order Allowing Amended Exemptions Following Re-Opening of Case

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, a debtor is required to file a schedule listing all of the debtor’s property. This includes cash, hard assets such as furniture and cars, as well as intangibles such as causes of action or potential causes of action. The Bankruptcy Code allows debtors to “exempt” certain types of property from the estate, enabling them to retain exempted assets post-bankruptcy.

On May 4, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, No. 14-116, a case which deals with issues of finality and appealability of orders in bankruptcy proceedings. In a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that a bankruptcy court’s order denying confirmation of a Chapter 13 debtor’s proposed repayment plan is not a final order and thus is not immediately appealable.

BACKGROUND

When an individual contemplates filing for bankruptcy protection, he or she has a few options. One is to file a Chapter 7 case, and another is to file a Chapter 13 case. In a Chapter 7, all of a debtor’s non-exempt assets are transferred to a bankruptcy estate to be liquidated and distributed to creditors. In a Chapter 13, the debtor retains assets and makes payments to creditors according to a court-approved plan.

Upon the filing of a bankruptcy petition, an automatic stay goes into effect which provides a debtor with immediate protection from collection efforts by creditors. But the automatic stay is not without limitations.

There has been much discussion in the media in the past year about the massive amount of professional fees that have been wracked up during the City of Detroit's Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There is always great interest - and debate - about such fees due to the nature of the process: insolvent individuals or companies with no place left to turn file for bankruptcy, creditors take a "haircut" on their claims, and the lawyers get paid. Or so the story goes. As with any complex process, though, there is plenty of nuance that gets lost in the wash, and often is more to the story.

In the current economic environment, many banks have lost significant capital and are under immense pressure, regulatory and otherwise, to recapitalize. Failure to recapitalize within time frames set by bank regulators can result in a bank’s seizure by its chartering authority and an FDIC receivership.

The FDIC voted to extend the safe harbor provided under 12 C.F.R. § 360.6 until September 30, 2010, from the FDIC’s ability, as conservator or receiver, to recover assets securitized or participated out by an insured depository institution. When the safe harbor was initially adopted in 2000, the FDIC provided important protections for securitizations and participations by confirming that, in the event of a bank failure, the FDIC would not try to reclaim loans transferred into such transactions so long as an accounting sale had occurred.