Priority debts are ones a debtor must pay first through the bankruptcy process. The court views these creditors as the most important and treats them as such in forthcoming repayment scenarios. As a general rule-of-thumb, debts are given priority status when a) the creditor is the government, or b) payment to the creditor is for […]
According to the American Bar Association, 55% of Americans die without any estate planning or named beneficiaries in a will. Some of the deceased never bother to create a will or engage in estate planning, while others create a document or directive that will be found invalid after they die. In these cases, their assets […]
Domestic support obligations like alimony or child support are considered priority debt and are not eligible for discharge or write-off in any bankruptcy chapter. In short, filing for bankruptcy will not relieve an individual of their domestic support duties, nor will it wipe the slate clean for the delinquent amount. Although they cannot be discharged, […]
In 1969, an effort was made to standardize and simplify the probate process among the 50 states through a set of model probate laws called the Uniform Probate Code (UPC). However, since its first draft, only a handful of states have adopted the UPC in its entirety. While probate laws don’t vary wildly among states […]
In recent years, there’s been a trend to use trusts rather than wills to transfer assets to family members. A revocable trust does offer some advantages over a will. For instance, trusts allow for more privacy than wills, and they make it possible to avoid probate in most cases. However, it is a misconception to […]
According to the Judiciary Data and Analysis Office (JDAO) of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, about 12.8 million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in the federal courts between 2005 and 2017. While few people want to file bankruptcy, for millions of Americans this last resort action provides an opportunity to clear their financial […]
