Friday, June 14, 2013

A minor glimmer of hope for Bucks County bankruptcy filers

If you have student loans and are considering a Bucks County bankruptcy, the future may be a little brighter since the last time I blogged about student loans. Currently, it is very difficult to discharge student loans in a bankruptcy.  Even if you're a senior citizen with limited future earning potential (despite senior citizen's maintaining 4.2% of total student loan debt).  As law student Jason Iuliano studied, only 300 out of 69,000 student loan borrowers who entered a bankruptcy attempted a discharge of their student loans.

Now, however, a bit more movement towards justice, equality, and debt forgiveness is occurring.  Recently, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (out of California) softened the hard-line stance.  In a nutshell, after reading the opinion, the influential 9th Circuit has slightly relaxed the standards of the Brunner test.

Some practical takeaways for Bucks County bankruptcy lawyers and their filers:
1)  Look to fight for a discharge if you are "tapped" out on your budget
2)  Prior to filing, don't give the court any reason to believe you are not "tapped" out -- get rid of Comcast, timeshare payments, etc.


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