New Year’s Resolutions From Your Friendy Neighborhood Bankruptcy Lawyer

by J. Kutkowski on January 6, 2012

Most of what I write about is filing for bankruptcy, particularly Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Lehigh, Northampton, or Berks County, Pennsylvania.  Once in a while I discuss defending credit card lawsuits and such.  Today I am going to talk about New Year’s resolutions.  Only this time they are going to be mine as your lawyer.

You see, as that great philosopher Simon Wilder in the movie “With Honors” (One of my top-ten movies of all time) said, “Our ‘founding parents’ were pompous, white, middle-aged farmers, but they were also great men. Because they knew one thing that all great men should know: that they didn’t know everything.  Sure, they’d make mistakes, but they made sure to leave a way to correct them.”

As a lawyer, I’ve made some mistakes, and more importantly, its time to correct them.

One thing I have let slip is the returning phone calls in 24 hours rule.  Now I know there are a lot of lawyers in this county that take weeks to return phone calls, but that has never been me, but I had a rule to return calls in 24 hours unless it was a weekend or a holiday and I know I dropped the ball on that this year.  To remedy this, I’ve got a simple solution.  I will return all my phone messages at the same time every day, that way I know it hasn’t been 24 hours.  My office number is 610-400-3093 just in case you need it.

Another thing I fell into last year is something that gets debtors in a lot of trouble, and that is procrastination.  Documents are filed with the bankruptcy court every day, yet it seems that issues are only resolved the day before they are due.  That is crap, and I am as guilty of that as anyone.  No more.  I will be logging into my ECF mail program each day and getting right on top of things.  Now I do have some matters that I am behind on, but in a matter of a month that will solve itself and I will never, ever, fall this far behind again.

Finally I have been guilty of being robotic at times.  Everything on this blog is about law, and that is all good information, but some of this blog should be about me and about the city of Emmaus that I call home.  Beginning with my next post, I’m going to let you a little more into my life and know a little more about me.  What movies I like, what kind of hobbies I do, as well as some of the great places in Emmaus that I suggest you check out.

So from today and on, the old lawyer who fell behind on his work and took too long to return calls is officially fired.  The new attorney Kutkowski is here, ready and able to help you get through your financial woes, and occasionally play movie critic and irate sports fan as well.

So what about you?  What are your resolutions this year?  Everyone wants to lose weight or get in shape.  We all probably ate too much over the holidays, but what about your finances?  Are you ready to get the weight of your credit card debt or other aggravations off your back?  Are you ready to start your ride off into the sunset and leave your debt woes behind you.  If you are, please call 610-400-3093 and set up your free consultation.  Debt freedom can be yours.

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Going Into Debt For a Vacation, Are You Kidding?

by J. Kutkowski on December 8, 2011

Warning, this is a post that has very little to do with bankruptcy.  It is the rant of a fed-up consumer lawyer.  If you are looking for legal information, there is plenty of it in this blog, but this post is not one of them.  If you are however looking for common sense for your dollars and cents, you have come to the right place.

Fair warning, let the rant begin!

Recently I was driving and heard an advertisement enticing the consumer to go into debt to go on vacation.

The ad goes something like this.

Wife: “Oh, I can’t believe it.”

Husband: “Yeah”

Wife: “Is this our vacation?”

Husband: “No, it’s the honeymoon we never took.”

So far, so good, but then here is the catch…  Wait for it…

Husband: (Thinking) “Finally I get to fulfill the promise I made, thank you Ivy (Name Changed to protect the guilty) Financial.”  Then the radio announcer guy says “Take out a loan against your house for new furniture or that vacation you’ve always wanted to go on.”

I thought we learned our lesson in 2008!

At this point I started yelling at the radio.  I stopped myself before I drove off the road and because I had woken up my daughter (sorry Mellie) with my rant.  I let loose a torrent of frustration usually reserved for my hapless New York Mets.

Did we learn anything in 2008?  You finally have SOME equity in your home and you are going to borrow against it to go on vacation?  Seriously?

Banks exist to make a profit.  They are not sending you on vacation for nothing.  Every additional dollar you borrow against your home is an additional dollar you will have to pay back later.  SO DON’T DO IT!!!

Lets pull this ad apart.  It said “take a loan against your house.”  A house is a thing, an object, something that is replaceable.  Your home is where your kids live!!! The bank is enticing you to borrow money against the place your kids live.

You can’t live in your vacation.

I can’t tell you how many people I see in my office that have awful second mortgages and can’t tell me where they spent the money.  I know where they spent the money, and so do the Ivy Financials of the world.

So what does this have to do with bankruptcy?  Very little actually.  Most lenders are being very careful about second mortgages these days.  They are being careful because with the value of real estate plummeting (it has dropped 35-40% and the biggest shoe hasn’t dropped yet) they have been subject to lien stripping even when they have tried to pull a dirty 80/20.  This means that a lot of second mortgage lenders are not getting paid on their loans.

Be assured that this time around, the second mortgages will be paid, every last penny, and if they are not, they are going to start foreclosure proceedings.

There is no free ride on the second mortgage these days.  I thought we learned our lesson in 2008.

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I Lost My Credit Card Lawsuit in Front of the Magistrate, What Now?

August 29, 2011

I had intended to gloat about my glorious victory in front of the District Justice (also known as the Local Magistrate) in Perkasie on Friday morning.  I should have been doing an end zone dance, or at the very least sipping the sweet taste of victory with a Starbucks coffee.  Unfortunately for me, we lost [...]

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I’m Unemployed and Running Out of Money, Now What?

July 14, 2011

Since the Obama Recession (you know the recession Obama inherited from Bush and then made worse) hit in 2009, a lot of people have been hurting financially.  Yahoo’s article this afternoon is a good one.  What struck me about this article was the point of it was about pain, it wasn’t about solutions.
The ultimate solution [...]

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Divorce and Debt, What a Divorce Decree Can’t Do

July 14, 2011

There is no way around it, divorce sucks!  Two people who promised to love, honor, and cherish instead decide to dislike, disrespect, and dispose of each other.  Yup, divorce is up there with the list of things we hope we never have to deal with.
Sadly, 50% of marriages end in divorce.  That means 1 out [...]

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The Dirty 80/20

May 25, 2011

During the housing boom, mortgage lenders came up with new and exotic mortgages to put people in homes.
One of the most common mortgages was an 80/20 mortgage.  You would be given a first mortgage which would cover 80 percent of the cost of the home and then a second mortgage that would cover the remaining [...]

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Does the Statute of Limitations Make Your Creditor SOL?

March 30, 2011

In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitations on debt is four years.  That means that if a debt has a period of no debtor activity for four years the debt is no longer collectible in the Commonwealth.
So does this mean my creditor can no longer harm me once four years has past?  Like most things in [...]

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What is a Motion for Relief From Stay in Bankruptcy?

January 11, 2011

In both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a motion for relief from stay is when a creditor (usually a bank) asks the court to lift the automatic stay that protects the debtor from foreclosure or repossession.  The creditor has to give the court a reason, they can’t do it just because.
Generally speaking, the creditor [...]

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What is Absolute Zero and How Does it Effect My Bankruptcy?

January 4, 2011

Most Chapter 7 clients that I file cases for have one thing in common.  They have hit absolute zero financially.  What is absolute zero?
In science, absolute zero is where the temperature falls so low that molecules do not move.  It is the absence of energy, the absence of a capacity to change.

Absolute zero is a [...]

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Time For Bankruptcy To Turn The Next Chapter

July 8, 2010

It has been a while since I have posted, and I apologize for the silence, it was not intentional.  The law practice has been very busy and we hired one paralegal and will be hiring another paralegal at the end of this month.  This is a difficult but necessary decision, even for a certified control [...]

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