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Portraits Of Bankruptcy Filers, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne

Articles

One in ten adult Americans has turned to the consumer bankruptcy system for help. For almost forty years, the only systematic data collection about the people who file bankruptcy has come from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP), for which we serve as co-principal investigators. In this Article, we use CBP data from 2013 to 2019 to describe who is using the bankruptcy system, providing the first comprehensive overview of bankruptcy filers in thirty years. We use principal component analysis to leverage these data to identify distinct groups of people who file bankruptcy. This technique allows us to situate the distinctions …

Bankruptcy & The Underwater Home: A Case For Real Property Redemption, David Sheinfeld

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code exists to satisfy the claims of creditors and preserve an economic “fresh start” for the debtor after bankruptcy. In exchange for surrendering her property to the trustee to have it monetized (i.e., sold), the debtor receives a discharge of her debts and an injunction against future creditor in personam actions to recover them. However, the in personam injunction is insufficient to protect consumer debtors who are in default on mortgages encumbering underwater homes because the creditor’s in rem rights remain; after the conclusion of the case, the creditor can continue foreclosure proceedings, which …

House Swaps: A Strategic Bankruptcy Solution To The Foreclosure Crisis, Lynn M. Lopucki

Michigan Law Review

Since the price peak in 2006, home values have fallen more than 30 percent, leaving millions of Americans with negative equity in their homes. Until the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, the bankruptcy system would have provided many such homeowners with a remedy. They could have filed bankruptcy, discharged the negative equity, committed to pay the mortgage holders the full values of their homes, and retained those homes. In Nobelman, however, the Court misinterpreted reasonably clear statutory language and invented legislative history to resolve a three-to-one split of circuits in favor of the minority view …

Certainty Of Title: Perspectives After The Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis On The Essential Function Of Effective Recording Systems, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Recording systems for property play a pivotal, market-facilitating role for the players engaged in any transaction, the judiciary that must resolve disputes between the players, and others members of the general public by informing each about the true nature of ownership of the real property things in the world. This symposium article explores the essential character of such systems in providing certainty of title, and takes a tour through the mortgage foreclosure crisis to see where adherence to and respect for these systems’ roles broke down. Leading up to the crisis, as securitization became vogue and the housing boom blurred …

Home Foreclosures: Will Voluntary Mortgage Modification Help Families Save Their Homes? Part Ii? : Hearing Before The H. Comm. On The Judiciary Subcomm. On Commercial And Administrative Law, 111th Cong., Dec. 11, 2009 (Statement Of Associate Professor Adam J. Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin

Testimony Before Congress

The results to date from MHAP are deeply disappointing. Even the most optimistic view of HAMP and HARP’s potential would now project the programs as having only a minor impact on the foreclosure crisis. Until and unless the problems of unemployment; negative equity, and servicer capacity, incentives, and contract restrictions are addressed, we are unlikely to see noticeably different results. These issues cannot be addressed within the current structure of HAMP.

Unfortunately, none of the solutions for foreclosures due to unemployment are particularly satisfying, and without addressing unemployment, foreclosures will remain at elevated levels. Bankruptcy presents possible solutions to negative …

Worsening Foreclosure Crisis: Is It Time To Reconsider Bankruptcy Reform?: Hearing Before The Subcomm. On Administrative Oversight And The Courts Of The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 111th Cong., July 23, 2009 (Statement Of Adam J. Levitin, Associate Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin

Testimony Before Congress

The clear finding from my research is that mortgage prices are largely insensitive to bankruptcy modification risk. Permitting bankruptcy modification is unlikely to result in higher mortgage costs or lower mortgage credit availability.

The foreclosure crisis is not about to stop any time soon. Judicially-supervised restructuring of mortgages is the only tool we have left in the box. It's a tool we know can work. It's a tool that can save hundreds of thousands of families their homes and help stabilize communities, housing markets, and the economy. It's time to use it.

H.R. 200, The "Helping Families Save Their Homes In Bankruptcy Act Of 2009," And H.R. 225, The "Emergency Homeownership And Equity Protection Act": Hearing Before The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 111th Cong., Jan. 22, 2009 (Statement Of Associate Professor Adam J. Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin

Testimony Before Congress

Permitting modification of all mortgages in bankruptcy would create a low-cost, effective, fair, and immediately available method for resolving much of the current foreclosure crisis without imposing costs on taxpayers, creating a moral hazard for borrowers or lenders, or increasing mortgage credit costs or decreasing mortgage credit availability. As the foreclosure crisis deepens, bankruptcy modification presents the best and least invasive method of stabilizing the housing market and is a crucial step in stabilizing financial markets.

Empirical And Policy Perspectives On Consumer Bankruptcy Law In The United States (In Endeudamiento Del Consumidor E Insolvencia Familiar), Melissa Jacoby

Melissa B. Jacoby

This chapter, published in Spanish, offers new empirical data from the U.S. on consumer bankruptcy filers from the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project, an evaluation of the two-chapter bankruptcy system, and proposals for structural reform.

The Debt Financing Of Parenthood, Melissa B. Jacoby

Melissa B. Jacoby

In this contribution to the symposium Show Me the Money: Making Markets in Forbidden Exchange, I explore an under-appreciated participant in the assisted reproduction and adoption industries: consumer lenders. Through fertility clinics and other service providers, financial institutions market and distribute loans specifically to finance acquisition of treatments, drugs, and human eggs. Adoption foundations and agencies advertise for-profit loans to intended parents, while small foundations offer adoption loans that appear to be low-cost financially but may condition loan approval on intended parent characteristics such as religious observance, marital status, sexual orientation, and adherence to traditional gender roles. After discussing how …

Home Mortgage Problems Through The Lens Of Bankruptcy, Melissa B. Jacoby

Melissa B. Jacoby

Based on a lecture at a predatory lending conference at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law, this brief paper discusses the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project and how the empirical study of bankruptcy law informs our understanding of the intersection of mortgages and homeownership with financial distress, and whether bankruptcy can provide meaningful redress.

Bankruptcy And Mortgage Lending: The Homeowner Dilemma, A. Mechele Dickerson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Mortgage By Any Other Name: A Plea For The Uniform Treatment Of Installment Land Contracts And Mortgages Under The Bankruptcy Code, Juliet M. Moringiello

Juliet M. Moringiello

No abstract provided.

Taking From Farm Lenders And Farm Debtors: Chapter 12 Of The Bankruptcy Code, James J. White

Articles

In passing Chapter 12 of the Bankruptcy Reform Act, Congress has effectively invalidated certain important provisions of existing farm mortgages. Equally significant, Congress has disabled farmers from granting binding mortgages on the full, value of their property. Although no court is likely to find the Chapter to violate the fifth amendment, the Chapter constitutes a substantial and retroactive alteration of the rights of existing mortgagees and a restriction on the powers of prospective mortgagors to grant valid mortgages. The thesis of this paper is that Congress was both wrong and shortsighted in its enactment of Chapter 12. Congress was wrong …

Property, E. F. Roberts

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the past, property exemplified law as an ordered set of rules, each axiom fitting nicely into an almost immovable intellectual mosaic of immense size. This obsolete rule grid still serves a purpose. It has been pressed into service as a vehicle to test aspirants for admission to the bar, now that even the bar examiners in this Republic have succumbed to using multiple choice questions susceptible to machine scoring. The irony is that this bar examination law does not mirror the real law, the common-law model having been destroyed by the entropy that typifies this fragile society. Order has …

Bankruptcy - Reorganization - Nature Of Farmer-Debtor's Right To Adjudication Under Section 75 (S), Louis C. Andrews, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a farmer, filed his original petition May 3, 1934, under section 74 of the Bankruptcy Act. Eleven months later he amended his petition, seeking relief under section 75 (a)-(r). Until March 2, 1940, no progress was made, and at that time the plaintiff sought adjudication under subsection (s). The district court entered an order that the petition be denied and the mortgagee's title recognized. The circuit court of appeals affirmed, stating that the petitioner had an affirmative duty to proceed diligently in obtaining a composition and extension agreement under subsections (a)-( r). Held, reversed. The benefits of section …

Bankruptcy-Effect Of Rule Of Erie Railroad V. Tompkins On Priorities In Federal Bankruptcy Proceedings, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A company engaged in the mortgage-guaranty business became bankrupt, the respondent being the successor company resulting from reorganization proceedings under section 77B of the Bankruptcy Act. The original company had loaned money secured by a bond and mortgage and then sold certificates to the public representing undivided shares in the mortgage, the certificates being guaranteed by the same company. The mortgagor having defaulted, the controversy in the principal case arose because the now bankrupt company had before bankruptcy repurchased two of the certificates, acquired title to a third, and held the balance of the loan for which no certificates had …

Bankruptcy - Rights Of Trustee As Against Mortgagee Under Mortgage Containing After-Acquired Property Clause, Charles D. Johnson

Michigan Law Review

A mortgage, containing an after-acquired property clause which described specifically many kinds of property which should pass under it when acquired, was given to bondholders as part of a refunding mortgage. Several mortgages were subsequently executed to the mortgagees covering some of the after-acquired property. After the intervention of bankruptcy a dispute arose between the mortgagees and the trustee over the right to possession of certain property not covered by the later mortgages and in the possession of the bankrupt at the time of the adjudication. Held, under section 47a(2) of the Bankruptcy Act, the trustee takes the property …

Some Problems Arising Out Of Deposits To Pay Principal And Interest On Bonds, Paul P. Lipton

Michigan Law Review

Since Lawrence v. Fox contracts students have been puzzled by the numerous and varying relations that may arise when A, the debtor, delivers money to B to pay C, his creditor. Equally puzzling and much more complicated are the rights and relations of the obligor, trustee and bondholders with respect to sums deposited with the trustee to pay principal and interest on bonds.

The insolvency during recent years of many large trust companies that had been named as trustees in indentures securing corporate bonds, having on hand at the time of their failure large sums of money which …

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Distinction Between Sale And Tax Exempt Reorganization Under Section 112, Henry J. Merry

Michigan Law Review

The recent Supreme Court decision in Le Tulle v. Scofield, disapproving the views of four out of five circuit courts of appeals, appears to add a new and more specific requirement to the already complex law on the subject of statutory reorganization under the Revenue Act of 1928 -- that the consideration received by the transferor corporation include some stock of the transferee corporation. In the subject case, the Gulf Coast Irrigation Company transferred substantially all its assets to the Gulf Coast Water Company in exchange for $50,000 in cash and $750,000 in mortgage bonds, four-fifths of which matured …

Contracts - Third Party Beneficiary - Right Of Promisor To Set Off Claim Againt Promisee In A Suit By Beneficiary, Arthur A. Greene Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A and B mortgaged real estate to the plaintiff to secure their notes aggregating $9,000. Six months later A and B exchanged this property to the defendant for certain real estate owned by her. By the deed the defendant assumed the mortgage indebtedness owed to the plaintiff. As a further consideration for the exchange, A and B executed a note for $13,050 to the defendant. The plaintiff instituted this action against A and B, seeking to recover the balance, and by amended petition joined the defendant. The defendant claimed the right of set-off on the uncollected judgment against A …

Contracts-Liability Of Purchaser At Forclosure Sale For Obligations Of Forclosed Railroad

Michigan Law Review

The BN Company executed a mortgage on certain railroad properties as security for a bond issue of the Company. Thereafter the Lehigh Company leased the mortgaged property for a term of 999 years. The lease stipulated that "all its covenants are to apply to the parties hereto, and to the several successors and assigns * * * of the parties or their properties." The lessee covenanted therein to indorse a guaranty of payment on the bonds of the BN Company. and did so indorse. Subsequently a mortgage executed by Lehigh prior to the lease with the BN Company, but which …