When you filed your Chapter 13 bankruptcy five years ago, the goal was to complete the plan and get a discharge. The “discharge” is the legal determination that all of your unsecured debts that remain after the plan are gone. The collection company or bill collector can no longer bother you or seek payment for…

Should you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy if you want to stall a foreclosure?    Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy can stall a foreclosure and it may give someone additional time for someone to stay in their home  but there is no way to say how long.   So the long answer would be to say is…

Lawyers are not interchangeable. One lawyer is not necessarily as good as another. Price is probably the poorest basis on which to choose an attorney. Bankruptcy law is not about filling out forms. You do file forms in bankruptcy, but the job requires a lawyer because it is not obvious what information goes in those…

Times are tough, money is tight and you are drowning in debt. You have nowhere to turn, and much like Michael Scott on “The Office” you just want to step outside and shout at the top of your lungs, “I. Declare. Bankruptcy!” But the world doesn’t work like that. Bankruptcy is not a simple or…

Question:  Business Bankruptcy: Unemployed?  Is Now The Time To File Bankruptcy? Before the bankruptcy laws were “reformed”, my rule of thumb was not to file bankruptcy when you were out of work.  For most folks, they had nothing that even a creditor who sued and got a judgment could take from them. Wait, I counseled, until…

Michael A. Cibik, Esq. writes a regular column titled “Understanding Bankruptcy” that appears in the Philly Record. This is that column. Question: Business Bankruptcy: When, How, and What Kind? If you own your own business, and that business is in trouble, or even just not doing as well as it once was, among the tools you should consider…