The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in the case of In Re: McCormick that a recorded North Carolina deed of trust indexed in a county’s grantor/grantee index may nevertheless be avoided by a trustee in bankruptcy if such county has elected a Parcel Identification Number (“PIN”) indexing system and the recorded deed of trust does not appear in such PIN index. This alert briefly describes the PIN system in North Carolina and the McCormick decision’s impact on the need for PINs in deeds of trust recorded in North Carolina counties that have adopted the PIN
Those thinking that the trials and tribulations of the recession may have passed them by and that, if all else failed, at least the pension was safe, may have to think again following two recent court decisions in which pensions came under attack from creditors and trustees in bankruptcy.
The vexed question of whether a future right to receive a pension can be attached to satisfy a judgment, or can be claimed by a trustee in bankruptcy, has long since troubled the courts.
Borrowers who file a bankruptcy petition are always looking for creative new challenges to claims asserted by their bank creditors. In recent years, debtors have argued that a bank’s issuance of an Internal Revenue Code form 1099-C “Cancellation of Debt” has the effect of waiving the bank’s claims against the borrower, and should preclude the bank from having an allowed claim in the bankruptcy case. Fortunately, some recent court opinions state that a bank’s issuance of a 1099-C does not constitute a waiver, and the bank remains entitled to enforce its claim in a subsequent bank
An administrator who was sued in relation to contractual liabilities which he entered as administrator of a company was found to have no personal liability for those contracts or for the costs of the litigation.
In the recent case of Wright Hassall LLP v Morris1 the claimant advanced various arguments in an attempt to make the administrator personally liable for a costs order in litigation where the defendant companies were unable to pay. These arguments were rejected.
By order issued on February 23, 2012, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina vacated the bankruptcy court’s decision in In re Mammoth Grading, Inc. This decision and the companion decision in In re Harrelson Utilities, Inc. held that the lien rights of construction subcontractors and suppliers cannot be perfected once a bankruptcy petition is filed by a party higher in the contract chain.
The High Court has held that where litigation is commenced against the administrator of a company, arising out of contractual obligations entered into in that capacity, he or she will not be personally liable, despite the insolvent company being unable to meet the resulting liability.(1)
The courts and FOS are now headed down very different paths in their approach to credit crunch losses suffered by clients of regulated firms. While FOS has all but abandoned the general law of causation in its approach to cases of consumer detriment, we have observed how the courts have held again and again that the general law of causation applies to mis-selling claims.
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that client money held in un-segregated accounts should be treated the same as client money held in segregated accounts, enabling un-segregated account holders to share in the client money pool on the insolvency of a firm with whom the account is held.
As real estate-related bankruptcy filings remain steady, courts continue to see debtors challenging the validity of deeds of trust and mortgages due to minor scriveners’ errors. The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina is viewed by debtors as a favorable venue in which to bring such challenges due to a string of prior rulings starting with In re Head Grading in 2006, which invalidated a North Carolina deed of trust that incorrectly cited the date of the related note by one day. The latest chapter in this saga involves an effort by a