For the past few years, the federal circuit courts have struggled with the issue of whether a creditor retaining possession of bankruptcy estate property violates the automatic stay. For example, is a creditor required to automatically turn over a vehicle as soon as the bankruptcy petition is filed, or can the creditor retain possession of the vehicle while awaiting an order of the bankruptcy court adjudicating turnover in an adversary proceeding?
Frequently, borrowers file for bankruptcy at the 11th hour to halt foreclosure sales. Once a petition for bankruptcy relief has been filed, secured creditors must cease their collection efforts to avoid violating the automatic stay. However, the automatic stay terminates upon a debtor’s dismissal and closure of the bankruptcy case. A Pennsylvania bankruptcy court recently ruled that if a foreclosure sale occurs between the time when a bankruptcy case is dismissed and when it is reinstated, the foreclosure sale is not void and does not violate the automatic stay.
On December 21, 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA 2021). Similar to the March 2020 CARES Act, several temporary changes to the Bankruptcy Code are included in Title X of the CAA 2021. Below, we examine four of the CAA 2021’s most significant changes to consumer bankruptcy laws.
On December 9, 2020, Congressional Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), proposed sweeping legislation that would overhaul consumer bankruptcy law. The proposed changes generally make it easier for consumers to access the bankruptcy system and discharge their debts. Below is a discussion of 10 critical changes proposed in the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020 (CBRA).
1. Chapters 7 and 13 Are Replaced with New Chapter 10
In a notable decision interpreting the March 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Alabama held that Chapter 13 debtors behind on their payments before March 2020 may seek modification of their plan if they suffered from COVID-19 related financial distress.
Real estate lenders and borrowers everywhere are trying to figure out what to do with properties that are either sitting vacant or underperforming pre-pandemic expectations. In New York, a number of mezzanine foreclosures have been pursued with varying degrees of success when challenged in court. Some lenders have been shopping their loans, mostly at discounts to par that are not large enough to create substantial deal flow in the marketplace.
Translating to “now for then,” nunc pro tunc orders grant backdated relief. Such orders are common in bankruptcy cases. For instance, bankruptcy courts often enter orders retroactively approving retention of professionals, and in certain cases even granting retroactive relief from the automatic stay.
The Bottom Line
Your former employee sues you, but your employee-plaintiff filed for bankruptcy. You diligently research the bankruptcy filings and discover the employee did not disclose the lawsuit against you in those filings, which are sworn to under oath. You might have a winner to get out of the case, right? Well, it is not quite that simple, according to a recent ruling in Georgia.
In the latest decision arising out of long-running disputes over confirmation of the Tribune Company’s Chapter 11 plan, the Third Circuit issued important new guidance concerning the enforceability of subordination agreements in cramdown plans, holding (1) that subordination agreements “need not be strictly enforced” in such plans, and (2) that the relevant comparison, for determining unfair discrimination, need not always be a comparison between the recovery of the preferred class and the dissenting class, but may sometimes entail a comparison between the dissenting class’s desired and act