If you are a business owner COVID 19 presents challenges regardless of which kind of business you own. But for some businesses, COVID 19 is altogether disastrous. Take the restaurant industry as one example. In Minnesota, restaurants were closed for a certain period of time. While the PPP loan stimulus kept many afloat short term, those funds are now long gone. The trouble is the business has not come back though and the funds are gone. Sure restaurants in Minnesota are allowed to be open under strict guidelines, but when you have a wary public of any kind public gatherings, the number of people actually go to restaurants to eat in side is far less.

I can only imagine the thoughts coming across your mind as you read this title. One of the policy considerations behind bankruptcy is the idea that bankruptcy is good for the economy. What? How can this be true? Let me ask you a simple question; do people who are suffering from enormous debt purchase things? No, they do not. They don’t purchase things because they cannot afford to purchase anything because most of their net income goes to service their debts.

Kain & Scott is Minnesota’s nicest bankruptcy law firm guaranteed or 100% off your fees™*. What does this mean? You can find our complete guarantee on our website at www.kainscott.com. Basically, if you don’t think Kain & Scott is Minnesota’s nicest bankruptcy law firm (most kind and helpful) and you tell us within 30 days of filing the bankruptcy case, and we cannot rectify the problem to your complete satisfaction, we will not only refund 100% of the attorney fees you paid us thus far, but we will also pay for you to have another bankruptcy lawyer complete your bankruptcy for you. Now is that confidence or what? You don’t guarantee your service will be the most kind and helpful unless it really is the most kind and helpful.

Don’t listen to the supposed “gurus” who tell you to avoid bankruptcy. Some of these supposed “gurus” filed bankruptcy themselves. And now, they tell you not to file bankruptcy. I sometimes wonder who is paying these people to say this. Is it big corporations or credit card companies? If bankruptcy was good for the guru why is it not good for you too? One even has to be careful with “debt consolidation” companies who are owned in whole or in part by big finance companies.

If I were a Minnesotan looking to file bankruptcy one of the things I would love to know is what do people think, who have already filed bankruptcy in Minnesota, after they filed the bankruptcy? Do these people regret the decision they made to file bankruptcy? Are they thankful they made the difficult decision to file bankruptcy? Would they file bankruptcy again knowing what they know now? These are all wonderful questions I would want to know before I stuck my toes in the bankruptcy waters. Thankfully, there is no need to wonder about these questions. You see, our former guests know exactly how you feel right now. The nerves, the apprehension, and the scared out of your mind feelings you have. Our former guests all felt the same way. But what our guests found is once they filed the bankruptcy and got their lives back, they never regretted the decision to file.

COVID 19 has changed a lot of things for a lot of people. If you have a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy plan that was confirmed prior to March 27, 2020, you may have the ability to extend your plan. Under the CARES ACT, Congress extended the maximum Chapter 13 plan to 84 months from 60 months. But this only applies to those people who already have Chapter 13 plans confirmed as of March 27, 2020. Also, there is a sunset provision in the Act. You must have a plan confirmed by March 27, 2021 to qualify for the extension. 

At Kain & Scott we authored the book on bankruptcy and attorneys, “Filing Bankruptcy Sucks, Your Lawyer Should Not”. Isn’t this a great title for a bankruptcy book? I love it! It speaks to exactly how one feels about bankruptcy and lawyers who help you through it. Just the thought of filing bankruptcy for some can send them into a full blown panic attack. I get this. The thought of filing bankruptcy can be daunting and very scary. At Kain & Scott, we honor the courage it takes for you to file bankruptcy. We honor that courage by having the most helpful and kind bankruptcy team of staff and lawyers in the state of Minnesota, period! 

There is a benefit to filing bankruptcy that so many people miss. And after they file the bankruptcy and get a discharge they are surprised to learn of this benefit. You see, so many people mistakenly believe that bankruptcy ruins your credit, and maybe forever. The truth is, just the opposite occurs. People are always surprised to learn that they are able to get credit after bankruptcy. I speak to numerous people who a year after bankruptcy are buying homes, cars, and get credit cards and other lines of credit. They should not be surprised by this at all. You see future lenders don’t care if you fail to pay your creditors, what they really care about is are you going to pay us back if we lend you money?

Many of your neighbors and friends have turned to Kain & Scott for help in resolving a debt problem in Minnesota. They trusted us to take care of them in their time of despair. When we crushed their debt burden and treated them well they left us glowing reviews. We do not take these reviews for granted at all. We cherish them all and are reverent to them all. You see, at Kain & Scott we are here to serve humans in their time of need and despair and convert them into feeling the most hope they have felt in years. It is a beautiful thing to take someone from a place of despair to sheer joy and hope again.

You may hear your attorney throw out quite a few terms in your bankruptcy case. What do they all mean?

In Legal Lingo in Bankruptcy, we discussed common terms you may hear in a bankruptcy. 

Be careful of any out of state companies who are trying to solicit you into filing bankruptcy through them, sort of. I say through them sort of because they really don’t handle your bankruptcy case. Instead, some of these companies or purported law firms refer your case back to a Minnesota licensed attorney. How the fees you pay are split between the out of state company and this Minnesota based lawyer is not clear. What is clear is that there is a fee split between the two entities. You don’t need an out of state company to refer you to a qualified Minnesota bankruptcy lawyer. In fact, some of these lawyers are definitely not the most qualified bankruptcy lawyers in Minnesota. 

In Minnesota, our clients want their lives back. They want the suffering from overwhelming debt to end and they want a new beginning. In my opinion, you don’t have your life back until 1) your debt is gone in bankruptcy and 2) your credit is repaired using Kain & Scott’s FREE 90 day credit repair program. Now, we can eliminate your debt in either a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Both bankruptcies have their pros and cons. Every person’s case is different and no two cases are the same. Sometimes people profile like one or the other except for that one fact that makes them the opposite case you would think. For example, suppose a person profiles like a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy except they are 5k behind on the house loan and they desperately want to keep the house? With that additional fact, they might be best suited to a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy where we can cure mortgage arrears over time and keep their home.  

Section 525 of the Bankruptcy Code does stipulate protections against discriminatory treatment for bankruptcy filers. The code provides that a, “governmental unit may not deny, revoke, suspend, or refuse to renew a license, permit, charter, franchise deny employment to, terminate employment of…” a bankruptcy debtor. 11 U.S.C. § 525. Additionally, no private employer may terminate employment or discriminate against a debtor solely because the debtor filed bankruptcy.

Creditors file a motion for relief, when they want relief from the automatic stay. Typically this is done if the creditor wants to take collection steps against the bankruptcy filer. For example, this could be proceeding with foreclosure, repossession, or other forms of collection.  

One of the biggest concerns when our clients file a bankruptcy is regarding what will happen to their home. The amount of equity a client has in their home, determines how we will proceed with protecting their assets using the bankruptcy code. If a single debtor has more than $25,000 of equity in their home, we will use Minnesota exemptions to protect it. Minnesota exemptions can protect upwards of $400,000 of equity in a home—and that exemption is referred to as the homestead exemption. With the protection in place, our clients need to be aware of exempt assets and non-exempt assets. What does that mean? Assets refer to the items you own, exempt means they are afforded protection and non-exempt means they do not fit under a protected category according to Minnesota bankruptcy law.