In this Podcast, San Francisco bankruptcy attorneys Jeena Cho and Jeff Curl discuss the basics of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Answering commonly asked questions: “Can I keep my home, car, property in bankruptcy?” and “How about my failing business?”

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Transcript: Podcast #1 - Difference between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy Podcast 1

This podcast is brought to you by attorneys Jeena Cho and Jeff Curl of JC Law Group, whose practice is dedicated to bankruptcy for individuals and small businesses.

This podcast is not legal advice. For more information please go to JCLawGroup.com.

This is podcast 1.

Mark: Hi everyone. This is Mark Merenda. I’m a specialist in working with attorneys. I’m actually on the east coast in Florida and today I’m interviewing bankruptcy attorneys Jeena Cho and Jeff Curl of JC Law Group in San Francisco, California.

Hello Jeff and Hello Jeena.

Jeff: Hi Mark.

Jeena: Hi Mark.

Mark: For those of us who are not lawyers or not familiar with the bankruptcy code, I’ll tell you what I know. You tell me if I’m wrong or right because I’m a layman. I’m not an attorney. I think I know three kinds of bankruptcy. A Chapter 7, a Chapter 13 and a Chapter 11. How close am I?

Jeena: For an average person, they’re going to be dealing with Chapter 7, which is what we call a straight liquidation. That’s the quickest bankruptcy out there. You’re basically in and out of bankruptcy in about four months.

Chapter 13 is a repayment plan where you repay some of your debt. A lot of people seem to think that you have to payback 100% of your debt. It’s not true. It’s based on your income and your expenses and we do this long calculation and whatever is leftover at the end of the month is what we pay to the trustee and then the trustee will distribute it amongst all of your creditors.

Mark: Both the Chapter 7 and 13 that you just discussed, those are both for consumers, correct?

Jeena: That’s correct. They can either be just consumers or consumers that are operating as a small business.

Mark: When somebody comes in to you and says, “This is my financial situation,” and so on, what criteria make you decide to recommend a 7 or a 13?

Jeff: It just depends on their financial circumstances and some people will get a huge benefit out of a 7 and no benefit out of a 13 and vice versa.

For example, in a 13, there’s all kinds of advantages in a Chapter 13 that a Chapter 7 doesn’t have, such as if you’re behind on your car payments or your mortgage payments and you want to keep the house and you want to keep the car, a Chapter 13 will let you make-up those arrears throughout the life of your Chapter 13 plan.

Same for if you are behind on taxes and you owe the IRS or the state, a Chapter 13 will let you reorganize your debts and it’ll put the taxes first so that the taxes get paid off before almost anyone else.

That’s one of the huge differences between a 7 and a 13.

Mark: Let’s back out for a minute and look at the big picture, which is obviously the last two years the economy has been really terrible. We’ve been in a deep, deep recession and a lot of people are, as you just mentioned, upside down in their house or their credit card debt is overwhelming them or something like that.

What are you seeing now compared to what you saw three years ago?

Jeff: I’m seeing lots of very successful people who are struggling mightily and the thing about our clients is there’s no demographic. We don’t have a particular age. We don’t have a particular race or education. It’s everyone and it’s just not discriminating at this point.

So people who were earning a quarter million, people who were earning $50,000 and $30,000 who were just fine, they’re now underemployed or unemployed.

I think the thing that’s concerning us the most is when we see someone who’s doing the slow bleed, where they take their 401K savings and they take a little every few months or every year in an attempt to survive, but they have such a high amount of debt at this point that taking that savings is really a bad idea.

I think that’s one of the hardest things for us to see, when someone comes in, is that they’ve drained their savings in an attempt to payback their credit cards when they could have just got rid of it in bankruptcy.

Mark: Right. Obviously there’s an emotional toll that as well. People sort of have emotional savings. They’ve got some emotional credit in the bank, if you want, and they’re draining that as well. Do you see people who are under a lot of stress, a lot of emotional distress?

Jeena: Yeah. A lot of times when people come in, they will just sit down and cry because they haven’t slept in months because creditors are hounding them constantly. They’ve literally gone through all of their life savings. Sometimes their children college education fund and they just sit down and cry and they say, “I don’t know what else to do.”

I’ll talk to them about bankruptcy, but they’ll say, “Well, I just can’t do it. I wasn’t raised this way. It’s not morally correct.” There are 1,001 reasons why they just feel they can’t file for bankruptcy.

What I really try and explain to them is it’s about your survival. I don’t think it’s a moral decision. I think it’s a financial decision.

Mark: But I think people do feel there’s a certain stigma attached to it, right? I mean I’m a successful middle class guy, as Jeff said. I earned a quarter of a million dollars. I’m not the sort of person who files for bankruptcy. That happens to poor people or incompetent people or people who are reckless or stupid with money.

Jeff: But if they saw every single one of our clients, I think they would all be shocked. I know a lot of our clients have actually expressed an interest in meeting other clients of ours because they’re just curious about who’s filing.

The thing about our clients is they’re all actually remarkably successful, if that’s a demographic. It’s just that some of them have had bad health issues where they don’t have health coverage and so they find themselves owing $100,000 in medical debt.

Some of them are very talented employees, but the corporations are laying off, not hiring, and they don’t have a job. These people are bankers and lawyers and teachers. It’s every segment of our society that you come into contact and just statistically you probably know a couple of people who have filed. You just don’t know it because they haven’t told you.

Mark: Right. So one of the key messages here in this podcast is you’re not alone. There’s no reason to be ashamed about this. It’s happening to a wide spectrum of people, successful people, good people, fine people. It’s just circumstance.

Jeena: Right. I don’t think filing for bankruptcy is a reflection on you as a person. Like Jeff said, we have everyone from the 19 year old kid that doesn’t have anything but the clothes on his back and his skateboard.

I just read in the newspaper the other day that the average American is three weeks away from filing for bankruptcy because they don’t have enough savings and they have too much revolving line of credit.

I think for someone to sit there and say, “Well, you know,” and to judge another person for filing for bankruptcy when so many people are going through it, it’s sort of misplaced.

Mark: I think there are people too, I imagine, who are listening to this who are saying, “You know, I’m not a victim of circumstance. I didn’t have medical bills. I didn’t get laid off or anything like that. I’m a victim of my own stupidity. They gave me all these credit cards and I spent too much money and now I can’t repay it.” And they feel ashamed about that.

Jeff: Well, frankly there is some personal responsibility attached to it, but there’s also the fact that if you miss one payment or some people who didn’t miss one payment and your credit card defaults you to 30% across the board, you’re not going to survive.

People cannot handle 30% interest.

Mark: It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I am just staggered by what it is that the credit card companies get away with. The mob doesn’t get those kinds of rates.

Jeff: The credit card industry is its own worst enemy.

Jeena: Exactly. If I loaned you money, $10,000 at 30% interest, you could sue me for violating the usury law, but the credit card companies, they get away with that.

A lot of times I will sit down with a client and say, “Well, how long have you been making these monthly minimum payments?” And sometimes they would have been making these payments for years.

When I sit down and calculate how much they had paid back over the course of five, seven years, they could have paid back the entire loan, but they were unable to because it’s almost impossible to pay your loans back at 30% interest.

It’s just not happening and I think the credit cards know that and they prey on it and that’s how they make their money.

Mark: Yeah. I saw some notation on one of my cards one time that said if you made the minimum payment, it would take you 33 years to payoff this loan.

Jeena: Yes.

Mark: Something like that. It’s ridiculous.

Jeena: Or people fall behind and they get payday loans and those are at 800%. I’ve seen the big font that says 800%.

Mark: But people do it.

Jeena: People do it. They’re desperate. They need to buy groceries for their family and they do it.

Mark: Why don’t we walk people through this? Let’s say that I’m a consumer and I’m listening to this podcast and I’m exactly one of those people that we talked about. I’m in trouble and I’m stressed out of my mind and the phone is ringing all the time with creditors.

I call you up. Tell me what happens next.

Jeff: They will schedule an appointment, will come in and meet with either Jeena or myself and it usually takes about an hour. We sit down and we just go through everything. First thing we usually do is just have the person sit down and tell us exactly what happened and what’s going on and what’s stressing them out. Just so we get an idea of what the problem is.

Mark: Let’s stop there for a minute. I’m the consumer now. I’m afraid of lawyers. They’re important. They’re expensive. They’re scary. Shouldn’t I be afraid I’m coming in to see you?

Jeff: Jeena, that’s your cue.

Jeena: A lot of people actually come in and say, “I was so afraid to come in and meet you, but you’re very friendly and you weren’t anything like I had imagined.” I think people have this idea of what lawyers are like, but we’re people like everybody else. We put on pants one leg at a time and we’re really there to just listen to your situation and try to give you the best advice possible.

I never sign clients up at the first meeting because I want people to go home and think about it. No one is going to force you to do it. That’s the other thing that people seem to think is that by going and speaking with a bankruptcy attorney, you have to file.

That’s not how I see it at all. You’re going in just to get your options and if you decide that’s the right remedy for you, then you can take that step, but ultimately the decision is up to you. I think you’re really doing yourself a disservice by not at least going out there and speaking with a professional about what your options are.

Mark: I think one of the fears too is, I guess, do you really care about me? Are you going to be nice to me and sympathetic with me and so on? Am I just a case to you? Is it all about the numbers or am I going to get some emotional understanding along with it?

Jeff: Yes. We love getting to know our clients and that’s been one of the most rewarding things about our practice is that we still keep in touch with certain clients. Every now and then we still have lunch or dinner or drinks or something because people like to keep in touch with us.

And we like to keep in touch with them also to see how they’re doing because after they unload $150,000 in debt and then they just carry on, it’s kind of nice to see them succeed afterwards.

It’s not going to do us any good to intimidate clients into bankruptcy. We want to sit down and basically have a conversation with someone just like you were confiding with a close family member or a close friend and have someone who’s listening, but who focuses on bankruptcy and debt settlement, who can appraise your situation from a neutral point of view and a skilled point of view and help you make a better decision.

Mark: Right. To continue with that thought for a minute that you guys care about the clients and are going to follow-up. I another concern that I have as a consumer is, of course, I’m somewhat ashamed that I find myself in this position. Whether or not that’s justified, I feel it.

How confidential is this?

Jeena: They’re not going to run a newspaper ad saying you filed for bankruptcy. Your name is not going to be on the evening news unless you’re a celebrity. I guess if you’re famous, that would become public knowledge.

The bankruptcy petition itself is public record, just like any other court proceedings and if someone wanted to go down to the courthouse and look it up, it’s possible. Obviously anyone that has access to your credit report can also look it up by running your credit report.

Mark: But there’s no reason why my friends and neighbors would know about it.

Jeena: No. No reason why your friends or neighbors or your boss would know about it.

Jeff: And the meeting with us initially is confidential.

Mark: Excellent. I think that’s a concern for everybody. I think when I was talking to you guys before, we were talking about what were the most frequently asked questions that you get when people first come in to see you and I think, Jeena, you said to me the very first one is my home. Will I lose my home?

Jeena: Right.

Mark: Do you want to tell me about that a little bit?

Jeena: Sure. Obviously home is where you live, where your children go to school, so people are attached to their home and that’s one of their big concerns is will I lose my home. If you’re facing foreclosure, if you have a foreclosure date scheduled tomorrow and you file for bankruptcy, there’s what’s known as an automatic stay.

The automatic stay is like a protective order. You’re under the protection of bankruptcy court and no one can collect against you once that order is in place. That will actually stop the foreclosure. That’s the first step.

It really just depends on what the situation with your home is. If you have equity in your home, you can keep that up to a certain dollar amount. If you don’t have equity in your home, it just depends on whether you’re behind or not behind on your mortgage and we’ll just have to look at whether Chapter 7 is an appropriate solution or Chapter 13.

Jeff: The general rule is if you can afford it, you can keep it. It’s when people want to keep things, like a million dollar mortgage, when they’re getting unemployment benefits. That’s just not going to work and that’s just not realistic.

Just because you can afford it, that’s a general rule. There are exceptions such as if you have a million dollars in equity, you’re not going to be able to keep all that equity, but for the average person who’s making mortgage payments, especially in this market where a lot of equity is minimal if not gone entirely, you can keep your home if you can afford it.

Mark: And then, of course, I think right after the home the next question is going to be what about my stuff? What about my car and my household goods and my jewelry and so on?

Jeena: In California, we’re very lucky that we have very generous exemptions and exemptions are just simply rules that say what you can keep in bankruptcy.

The first one is the $23,000 wildcard, which you can apply towards anything. If the fair market value of your car is worth less than $36,000 and we don’t have to protect anything else, you could potentially have a car that’s worth $23,000 and keep it.

Mark: So we’ve got $23,000 we can use for anything.

Jeena: Right.

Jeff: On top of that we have the household goods exemption, which means that anything in your house, you can protect up to $550 per item in its used condition.

Think of Craig’s List yard sale value. For most people, your furniture and your TVs and things like that are going to be less than $550 per item in their used condition.

For your jewelry there’s another small exemption of $1,500 and then I think a really important one is your retirement is protected on its own. So we do not run into problems with keeping people’s retirements as long as they’re in a 401K or IRA.

If your retirement is nothing more than cash in the bank and you have a million dollars in the bank, then we may have a problem, but that’s not a problem we’ve run into yet.

Mark: We’re about halfway into our podcast here and at some point soon I’m going to switch over and ask you questions about business bankruptcy as opposed to consumer, but is there anything that I haven’t asked you, that we’ve left out, that’s important for consumers to know?

Jeff: I think the number one message, if it hasn’t been clear, is for consumers to act. The number one problem we have is the fear of action or the fear of inaction by people. Because when they get phone calls, when they get letters or if they’ve been sued, a lot of people just get paralyzed because it’s so intimidating and so scary to have hostile creditors calling you and to know that you may lose your home, you may lose your car. You’re not sure.

It’s just an overwhelming circumstance when you start to get into debt.

Mark: And that’s a natural human reaction to any problem, isn’t it? We want to go home and pull the covers over our heads, right?

Jeff: Absolutely. I want to do it sometimes too.

Mark: Right, but there’s a cost to inaction. If you get a toothache and you don’t go see the dentist, you’re going to have a worse problem down the line.

Jeff: That’s exactly right. The one message that we always give to clients that we meet with or when we speak at events is for people to act and it’s just to pick up the phone and call a professional, whether it’s a financial advisor and just start getting the ball rolling, an attorney, whatever’s appropriate for whatever is going on with you.

Mark: Let’s say somebody is listening to this right now and they want to act. Give us your phone number. Who do they call? Do they call Jeena or Jeff and what number do they call and how do they get started?

Jeff: Call 415-963-4004 and our receptionist will schedule an appointment with either one of us.

Mark: Let’s talk about business owners. Obviously if the recession has had such terrible affect on consumers, it’s really wreaked havoc on an awful lot of small business owners. I have a friend who made $80,000 a year as a construction supervisor and when I saw him a few months ago, he told me he was sleeping in his car. That’s how bad it’s been.

When the housing industry goes down and the construction industry isn’t any good, then you see the trickle down. It doesn’t affect just those industries. It affects the person who owns the lamp store or the person who has the interior decorating service, the architects, this or that. The credit industry crisis and the real estate crisis have really taken a lot of people down.

Jeena: Oh yeah. Definitely. In the Bay Area there are so many entrepreneurs. Obviously we’re right down the street from Silicon Valley. People start businesses all the time in the Bay Area and when the business is suffering, what they’ll typically do is obviously borrow more money.

They’ll either take out lines of credit or get a small business administration loan or they’ll tap into their personal credit cards or lines of credit to try and fund the business.

What most people do is they come in and they say, “I need to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy for my business.” About 99% of the time that’s not necessary. It’s actually the person that we need to protect, not the business.

Mark: The business can just go down, but we need to protect that person and their assets.

Jeena: Exactly because if you personally guarantee the debt of the business, it doesn’t really do you any good if we file for bankruptcy for the business because then we’re just leaving you holding the bag. You can go out and start a new corporation tomorrow, but we need to protect you as an individual.

Jeff: Mark, a lot of times individuals will form a corporation or an LLC or maybe sometimes a general partnership and they think that because they have this separate legal entity that they are themselves not liable for any of the debt.

But a lot of times when a business takes on debt, whether it’s a credit card, whether it’s a SBA loan, a lease, or vendors, a lot of times these creditors will make the person, since they’re a small business, they will make the individual personally guarantee the loan.

Once the individual personally guarantees the loan, the function of the separate legal entity, the corporation, LLC, or whatever it is, doesn’t really help at that point for liability for the debt.

Mark: Why don’t you do what we did for the consumers, which is walk us through a little bit? I’m a small business owner. My business has fallen on terrible hard times. I’ve accumulated debt. I’m ready to fold my cards and go home. What do I do when I come in to see you? How does it work?

Jeena: I think the first step is to figure out whether you want to continue to operate that business or not. Let’s just assume that you have some small shop where you sell boutique stuff and the value of all the stuff in your store is $10,000. If you had to have fire sale and sell all the stuff, that’s how much it would be worth.

Assuming the clients wants to continue to operate the business, then we would just dissolve the business and start a new business. If you call it mom and pop’s shop one, you can call it mom and pop’s shop two and just start a new corporation and continue to operate that business.

Then we take all the debt that you accumulated from the first corporation and file for bankruptcy and basically ditch all the debt. If you don’t want to continue to operate the business, then we would obviously just dissolve the business, get rid of all of your debt through a bankruptcy and there you go and you’re done.

If you have a business that has a lot of assets, let’s say you operate a small shop and you have a lot of equipment and stuff like that that we can’t protect in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, then we would consider putting you into a Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

We would basically do what’s called a liquidation analysis. Let’s say you have $50,000 worth of assets and we can only exempt about half of it, then you would pay back the other half in a 60 month period. Assuming you have $25,000 of debt divided over 60 months is about $400 a month and at the end of the bankruptcy you can still keep your business and you get rid of all the debt.

Mark: Let’s address this question. I’m sure that any consumer or business owner listening to this podcast, one of the things that’s on their mind, they’re sitting there saying, “OK, Jeena and Jeff. That sounds really good, but what does it cost?” How will you answer that question?

Jeff: At the end of the consultation we’ll tell them exactly what we think it’ll cost because it depends on every single person and every individual. We get the call almost every day from one person who says, “Well, how much does it cost for me to do a bankruptcy?” I don’t know what chapter bankruptcy they’re filing. I don’t know which court they’re going to be in because we actually are in several courts and it just depends on your circumstances.

There’s not a single price.

Mark: Then the follow-up question is, “Jeff and Jeena, I’m broke. That’s why I’m in this situation in the first place. Paying $2,000 or $3,000 in attorney fees, where am I going to find that? How am I going to do that? Do you offer payment plans? Can you work with me that way?”

Jeff: Yes. We work with our clients as much as we can and what that usually means is when someone comes in and they are running out of money and they’re in debt, obviously paying your attorney $2,000 is a painful prospect, but one of the things that we usually do, and most of our clients have credit card debt, is the first thing we have them do when they’re going to file is stop paying their credit cards.

When they stop paying their credit cards, they all of a sudden have a lot more cash that’s free that they can save. So that’s probably the number one thing that people do to pay us our fees and we will work with them too to help them if they need a couple of months, three months, four months to get the fees to pay us. That’s fine.

Mark: In a very sort of cold-headed way of looking at it, hiring the bankruptcy attorney is a lot better investment than making those credit card payments that you can never catch up on.

Jeff: Yeah. It’ll take you 30 years to get to the zero point with a credit card or you could pay us and kill the credit cards immediately.

Mark: It sounds like a bargain to me. Back to the business owners for a moment and I guess this applies to consumers as well. Before coming to see you, before filing bankruptcy, are there things that they should do and should not do?

Jeena: Yes, definitely. A couple of things they should not do. When people run into financial difficulties, one of the common things they do is start borrowing money from mom and dad or family and friends.

That’s bad in two ways because A) it’s not like your credit card where you can just get rid of the debt through a bankruptcy. Legal you do, but if you owe money to your mom and dad, you’re going to want to pay them back.

They’ll also have to be listed on your bankruptcy petition, so if you don’t want your mom and dad to know that you filed for bankruptcy, obviously don’t borrow money from them.

The other thing is paying back mom and dad before you file for bankruptcy. You get your paycheck and you’re going to want to pay back mom and dad and not Discover and Chase for obvious reasons. The bankruptcy court looks at that and it’s considered an insider preferential treatment.

So what will happen is the trustee will go and say, “Well, your son or daughter has paid you $10,000, but they didn’t pay Discovery, Chase. I would like that money back.” So that puts your parents in an awkward position and probably doesn’t make for nice dinner conversations.

That’s one big thing that people should not do.

The other thing is transferring property. Again, people try and do cute things. They try and sell their car to their girlfriend or boyfriend for $1 or they transfer the title to their home, to their sons or daughters or whatever. Those are all considered fraudulent transfers and they look back on that when we file your bankruptcy.

I’d say those are the two big things people should not do.

Mark: And then there’s the obvious. They should not go out and buy fur coats and jewelry and take expensive vacations and then declare bankruptcy.

Jeena: Right.

Jeff: No. You’re not allowed to run up your credit cards using whatever remaining limits you have to have a last hurrah before you file.

Mark: Right. Other advice that you would give people? Anything before they call you?

Jeff: I think that’s pretty close, but the one thing I would say is if you feel like you need to call us, go ahead and call us and just act. We find that people don’t have a grasp of their circumstances just because they feel so overwhelmed by it.

So take a moment and find your credit card statements, open your mail and look at the collection letters and see who’s mailing you what and just get an idea of what the income, what the debt, what things look like so that when you come in, you’ll have the most information possible and then we can give you the best advice possible.

Mark: It’s probably a good place to put in an admonition to be honest with your attorney, right? There are probably people who come in and say, “This is all my debt,” but then they’ve got this other thing over there in the corner that they don’t want to tell anybody about.

Jeff: Yes. We do have the people who are either embarrassed about it or they just want to conceal it because they think no one’s going to find out. You would be surprised in bankruptcy how well we can protect your things and get around these issues.

The only way we can’t help you is if you don’t tell us. If we don’t know about it, we can’t protect you and in most cases the things that people are concerned about or embarrassed about, we can deal with and bankruptcy is premised on honesty and disclosure.

If you ever withhold or conceal something, that’s when you’re going to have a big problem. As long as you tell the truth, you’re going to be fine.

Mark: Let’s tell people again what they should do. They want to talk to Jeff or Jeena about their financial situation, learn their alternatives, learn whether or not bankruptcy is a good idea for them. They should call you guys at what number?

Jeena: 415-963-4004. They can press 0 to get to the operator. She will schedule you for an appointment. There’s a two-page questionnaire that we ask everyone to fill out. That just gives us a good overview of your situation.

One of the big things you have to list on there is all of your debts and a lot of people just don’t even have any idea as to how much debt they have. I think that’s just a good reality check to begin with. Do you have $10,000 worth of debt or do you have $100,000 of debt?

A lot of times they’ll come in and say, “I really had no idea that I owed that much money.”

Mark: They’ve been evading that knowledge.

Jeena: Right. Exactly.

Mark: It’s too horrible to look at.

Jeena: Right. We’ll schedule you for a consultation. You’ll always meet with either myself or Jeff. We don’t have you meet with a paralegal. I guess that’s the other thing we should point out about our practice is that we’re not volume practitioners. We don’t file hundreds of cases a month.

We don’t have a little mill with secretaries and paralegals. We do all the work ourselves. You’ll always be able to get in touch with us and I will be your attorney the entire case. I will be there at the 341 hearing. I will be there when your case concludes, so on and so forth.

There’s no, “Well, I signed up with this attorney and now this other attorney is taking over my case.” You don’t get that with us.

Mark: Which might well happen in a big law firm. I’ve seen all these ads on TV about Legal Zoom and I’ve seen stuff that says that these bankruptcy documents and all of that, I can go down to the courthouse and get those documents and fill them out myself and it won’t cost me anything. Why shouldn’t I do that?

Jeff: Well, would you cut your own hair or do your own surgery? It’s a really complicated process. It is nothing like filling out forms. There are volumes, tens of thousands of pages on bankruptcy and decisions that go into what you can put into those forms and what you can’t and why those forms sometimes change.

It’s really, really complicated and bankruptcy is also one of the fastest changing areas of law because we had massive amendments in 2005 and all those amendments are just percolating through the courts now and making it up to the Supreme Court and we just had lots of landmark decisions this past Supreme Court term.

Bankruptcy attorneys find it hard enough to keep up with this stuff. For a lay person to do it, I think would be almost impossible.

Jeena: Also, I think it’s about having an advocate on your side. When you go in front of the trustee at your 341 meeting, don’t you want someone sitting next to you that knows your case, that can answer the questions that the trustee has for you and help you deal with any potential problems that come up?

In fact, evaluate your case to make sure the problems don’t come up in your case. I just don’t think it’s something that you want to go at alone. It’s a very complicated area of law. Just like when you go through any difficult situation, you want to have an advocate that’s going to be on your side.

Mark: I can’t agree more. I want to thank you both for your time today. I think it was a great podcast and hopefully we’ll expand on some of these subjects in the future, but I think this was a great overview for folks who want to understand exactly what’s involved and what their options might be.

Finally, we’ll say it one more time, that if you would like to talk to Jeena or Jeff, you need to call them at 415-963-4004 or go to their website JCLawGroup.com. There’s lots of great information there. I urge you to listen to what Jeff had to say and understand that the worst thing that you can do is inaction.

Pick up the phone and do something and call Jeena and Jeff and you’ll be on the road to a new start. Thank you both for today and we’ll see you next time.

Jeff: Thanks Mark.

Jeena: Thank you.

JC Law Group is a debt relief agency under the United States Bankruptcy Code.