Bankruptcy Information

If youre in an active chapter 13 case, or contemplating a filing, you may have your eyes on the potential sale of your real estate down the road. The timing of your decision is critical.

In recent months, Ive had a number of people come to my office with a real estate deal on the verge of closing but a foreclosure sale looming within days. Filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy on behalf of my client wouldnt be so difficult but for the fact that the sale is scheduled to close within the next week or so.

 Weve talked about the fact that you can sell your house while in an active chapter 13 bankruptcy, but there hasnt been much discussion regarding when it can and cannot be done. For example, lets say your home is headed to the foreclosure auction in three days and youve got a contact in hand. Can you file a case then sell the house tomorrow?

Not so fast. Under the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure Rule 6003, the court is not allowed to enter an order giving you permission to sell your real estate within 21 days of the filing of your case.

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Tags: Chapter 13, Timing

Eastman Kodak Company (EKDKQ) is showing the in with the new model it wants to operate in.  Frankly, this implosion as a future turnaround just doesnt seem much better in bankruptcy compared to before bankruptcy. How Antonio Perez is still in charge is a total mystery. 

As part of its ongoing strategic review process and commitment to drive sustainable profitability through its most valuable business lines the company notes these changes:

• Phase out its dedicated capture devices business in the first half of 2012, comprising digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames. Kodak will instead expand its current brand licensing program, and seek licensees in these categories.
• Kodak’s Consumer Business will include online and retail-based photo printing, as well as desktop inkjet printing. 
• Kodak says that it will continue to honor all related product warranties, and provide technical support and service for its cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames.  Good luck.
• Kodak expects annual operating savings of more than $100 million, and it will incur a separation benefits charge of about $30 million as it exits these.
• The Commercial Businesses segment includes the Digital and Functional Printing, Enterprise Services and Solutions, and Graphics, Entertainment and Commercial Films units. Kodak

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Tags: Eastman Kodak, Ekdkq

Nearly 10 potential buyers have come forthminister

Local minister does not deny SOCAR interest

By Emma Farge

NEUCHATEL, Switzerland, Jan 30 Switzerland’s Cressier refinery, owned by ailing independent oil firm Petroplus, has attracted as many as 10 interested parties, Thierry Grosjean, economy minister of the Swiss canton of Neuchatel, told Reuters on Monday.

Petroplus is filing for insolvency after battling with high debt and poor refining margins, leaving the fate of five European plants unclear.

“I’ll say that there are between five and ten . More like ten, than five,” Grosjean said of the Swiss refinery.

Asked to confirm speculation that Azeri state oil firm SOCAR was among the potential bidders for Cressier, Grosjean said: “There’s no smoke without fire. It’s not false.”

The Azeri company is seen as a likely candidate as it is has previously expressed interest in the European downstream and because Azeri crude oil accounts for around a third of Swiss imports.

Also, SOCAR already has a foothold in the Alpine country through its its Genevabased trading arm.

But the wide interest in the plant comes as a surprise at a dismal time for the European crude processing industry where falling demand and strict environmental regulations have crushed margins.

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Tags: Cressier, Cressier Plant

Former Florida mortgage lender Lee Farkas, the government’s biggest criminal conviction of the financial crisis, wants a retrial.

Lawyers for Farkas, who was sentenced last June for orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraud, say a federal court’s “rush to judgment” violated his rights to a fair trial.  His lawyers also say a federal judge erred by instructing a jury its sole interest was to seek the truth without allowing further definition of “reasonable doubt.”  Read his brief here.

Farkas, whom federal prosecutors described as a “consummate fraudster,” was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of misappropriating about $3 billion and trying to fraudulently obtain more than $550 million from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program in a failed effort to prop up Colonial Bank. The seven-year fraud

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Tags: Lee Farkas, Retrial

For the last few years, I have witnessed a steady stream of homeowners flowing through my office who are dumbfounded by their inability to get a mortgage modification.  And for years, I have been telling them all the same thing:

YOUR SERVICER DOESN’T WANT TO MODIFY YOUR LOAN!

The truth of the matter is that, of all the options available to a mortgage servicer to deal with a distressed homeowner, mortgage modification is the least desirable for the servicer of your loan.

This phenomenon is discussed at length in a recent Washington Law Review article by attorney Diane E. Thompson entitled Foreclosing Modifications: How Servicer Incentives Discourage Loan Modifications, 86 WashLRev 755 (© 2011).  Ms. Thompson, who is Of Counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, adeptly dissects the servicer’s incentive to foreclose rather than modify a mortgage.  She concludes:

The financial compensation and constraints imposed on and chosen by servicers generally lead servicers to prefer refinancing, foreclosures, and short-term repayment plans to modifications. Service

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