In In re Zair, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49032 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 12, 2016), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York became the latest to take sides on the emerging issue of “forced vesting” through a chapter 13 plan. After analyzing Bankruptcy Code §§ 1322(b)(9) and 1325(a)(5), the court concluded that a chapter 13 debtor could not, through a chapter 13 plan, force a mortgagee to take title to the mortgage collateral.

Background

The failure of debtors to accurately list and value assets in their bankruptcy schedules is certainly not a new phenomenon. Recently, however, we are witnessing an increase in bankruptcy cases where debtors are using clever and deliberate means to omit assets or disguise the true value of their assets in an attempt to thwart recovery by creditors. While the U.S. trustee's or a creditor's remedy for such bad acts is to seek a denial of the debtor's discharge under 11 U.S.C.

Editor’s Note:  Here at The Bankruptcy Cave, we love insolvency stuff; we eat it for breakfast and dream about it at night.  (We are not kidding.)  Sometimes that includes credit-related litigation, and so we keep our pre-trial, trial, and appellate skills honed.  To that end, here is a very helpful cheat sheet we prepared and which we bring with us to every deposition, just in case.  (Your author Leah even got to enjoy a no-show deposition in Chicago last year; she created a perfect record using the below.) 

On Aug. 4, 2015, in City of Concord, New Hampshire v. Northern New England Telephone Operations LLC (In re Northern New England Telephone Operations LLC), No. 14-3381 (2nd Cir. Aug. 4, 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed the circumstances under which a creditor's lien on the property of a debtor may be extinguished through a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization.

On November 5, 2015, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California issued a “Memorandum re Plan Confirmation” in In re Bowie, Case No. 15-10144 (Bankr. N.D. Cal. Nov.

Pursuant to Section 727 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, an individual Chapter 7 debtor may receive a discharge "from all debts that arose before the date of the order for relief under this chapter." A Chapter 11 or Chapter 13 debtor may receive similar relief pursuant to Sections 1141 and 1328(b), respectively. Under any chapter, this discharge serves the Bankruptcy Code's principal goal of relieving a debtor from his or her prepetition obligations and providing the debtor with a "fresh start" on emergence from bankruptcy.

Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), a secured party can perfect its lien on certain of a debtor's assets by the filing of a UCC-1 financing statement. However, Section 9-509 of the UCC provides that a party may file such a financing statement only if the debtor authorizes the filing: either expressly in an authenticated record or, more commonly, by executing a security agreement. The UCC does not specify when a debtor must provide such authorization, but the U.S.

Compensation for bankruptcy professionals employed in bankruptcy cases is governed by Section 330 of the Bankruptcy Code. Section 330(a)(1) of the code provides, in pertinent part, that "the court may award to ... a professional person employed under Section 327 or 1103—(A) reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services rendered." Professionals whose employment is approved by the bankruptcy court consequently must file fee applications, to be reviewed and approved by the court for work performed in the bankruptcy case.

Have you ever had to press garlic for a recipe? Or put together a Swedish bookshelf, purchased from a Swedish superstore? Yes, you have – and you may have succeeded, so long as you had a garlic press, or the bag of special Swedish tools respectively. But what if you don’t? Yikes.

On Jan. 21, in Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Motors Liquidation v. JPMorgan Chase Bank (In re Motors Liquidation), No. 13-2187, (2d Cir. Jan. 21, 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed whether a UCC-3 termination statement, which was improperly filed as part of the repayment of an unrelated loan, may be considered effective to terminate the security interest in question, even where none of the parties intended that result.