Bankruptcy Law

Bankruptcy law is authorized by the United States Constitution in Article One, Section 8 entitled, "Powers of Congress," which provides that "Congress shall have Power to establish uniform laws upon the subject of bankruptcies." For the first 110-odd years after the Constitution was enacted, there was federal bankruptcy law for only 15 of those years. Many states had their own bankruptcy laws during that time. In 1898, Congress passed the "Torrey Bill," which formed the modern bankruptcy code which stayed in effect until 1979. In 1979 the "current" bankruptcy code was enacted during President Jimmy Carter's administration, which formed the standard and well known bankruptcy "chapters:" Chapter 7 (straight liquidation), Chapter 9 (for municipalities), Chapter 11 (corporate, partnership, and individual reorganization), and Chapter 13 (individual reorganization). Read more about bankruptcy

Filing Bankruptcy

No matter what chapter of bankruptcy is being filed, Chapter 7, chapter 11, chapter 13 or other, the bankruptcy case is commenced by filing a "petition." The filing can be either voluntary (done by the debtor) or involuntary (done by creditors). Read more about filing bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy Exemptions

What are bankruptcy exemptions, and how are they determined? First off, these are only for individuals filing for bankruptcy and not businesses, and they are something that allows you to keep up your standard of living by protecting some of your personal possessions from being taken by the court to pay off your debt. As I'm sure you are aware, in bankruptcy what often happens is that the court will take away your possessions to liquidate them and pay off your debts. Knowing what the court can take away and what they can't is very important to determining whether or not you should file for bankruptcy. If they can take away basically everything you own, then obviously filing is a bad decision. However, if a lot of your things fall under bankruptcy exemptions, then it might be a smart thing to file, and get rid of your debts so that you can start over. Read more about bankruptcy exemptions.

Stopping Foreclosure with Bankruptcy

Nothing can be more disheartening than receiving a foreclosure notice. After all, receiving a foreclosure notice means only one thing: that you would be losing your home or any other property you have placed as a form of collateral for a mortgage or a loan that you have taken out. This is often brought about by the inability of the borrower to meet the amount of payment that needs to be remitted to the creditor or financial institution at the schedule that has been agreed upon when the mortgage or loan has been taken out. The good news is that there are options that you can consider in order to prevent foreclosures to actually happen. Read more about bankruptcy stop foreclosure.