As of October 2010, Congress has proposed a new batch of amendments to Title 11 of the Federal Code. Title 11 is the Federal Code section that governs all bankruptcy cases in the US. These amendments are scheduled take effect in December of 2010 and be added to the code books in the first part of 2011.
Most of the proposed amendments to the Bankruptcy code have been proposed to deal with Congress's newly enacted Chapter 15 bankruptcy section. Chapter 15 is designed to help debtors with assets in the US and foreign countries, regardless of whether the debtor lives in the US.
However a lot of the new rules propose changes to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 7, or liquidation bankruptcy, is the only bankruptcy chapter where the debtor's assets are sold to repay their debts.
Some of the changes that will take affect include:
1. The debtor will have a shorter time to file a list of creditors during an involuntary bankruptcy case (applies to all chapters).
2. A Chapter 7 debtor will have longer to file a statement of completion of their required course in personal financial management.
3. If a debtor converts their case from a Chapter 11, 12, or 13 case to a Chapter 7 there will be a different time period to object to a exemption claim.
4. There will be different timings for filing motions under Chapter 7.
5. The clerk of the court will be required to provide a notice to individual debtors in a Chapter 7 or 13 case that if they fail to file a statement of completion of a personal finance course their bankruptcy case may be dismissed.
6. If a creditor has any objections to the discharge of a debt under Chapter 7, they will have to file a motion rather than by a complaint.
In addition to these proposed amendments there are other amendments that are planned to come into effect on December 1, 2011. These are:
1. New Bankruptcy Rule 2003 which will require a statement to be filed after the 341 creditor meeting has been adjourned.
2. New Rule 2019 will require increased disclosures concerning party's interests during Chapter 9 and 11.
3. Rule 3002.1 which will implement section 1322(b)(5). This rule will permit a Chapter 13 debtor to cure a default and maintain payments on their home mortgage.
As far as can be seen at this time, none of these rules are intended to be retroactive. This means that anyone seeking to take advantage of these rules will have to file for bankruptcy after these rules have to file for bankruptcy after these rules have taken
effect or they cannot be used. If you have already filed for bankruptcy, the court will not permit you to withdraw your petition in order to take advantage of the new rules taking effect on December 1, 2010 without waiting the statutory time for refiling.
If you are contemplating filing for bankruptcy and want to take advantage of these proposed rules, especially the ones being enacted in 2011, try to use the time to take advantage of other debt solutions. Debt settlement, debt management, or debt consolidation are good alternatives to bankruptcy and will have less of an effect on your credit score.
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Feds: Another Court-Appointed "Trustee" Is a Crook
By Bob Norman, Fri., Mar. 4 2011
Miami Herald
Freeman
Among the funds Tolz allegedly misappropriated was $1 million involved in the Scott Rothstein Ponzi case that she received from the U.S. Marshal's Service. The million bucks came from a charitable contribution Rothstein gave to Holy Cross Hospital during his big-shot days.
Federal court records show that Tolz was moving money from one trust account to another in an attempt to hide her theft.
Tolz is the second court trustee to be recently charged with stealing millions of dollars. Plantation attorney Lewis B. Freeman, who was also one of the South Florida's most respected accountants, was sentenced to eight years in July after he was convicted for pilfering $7 million from court accounts he was appointed to protect over a period of several years.
Understand, these are the people whom our courts, in all their wisdom, have chosen to protect funds for fraud victims. What do they do? Victimize them again. Just goes to show that in Broward Town, criminality is a top-down phenomenon.