What You Need to Know About the 2005 Changes to the Bankruptcy Laws

As you may know, the nation’s bankruptcy laws changed dramatically in October, 2005 with the enactment of the Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) of 2005.  This new law was the result of over ten year’s and many millions of dollars of lobbying by the banking and credit card industry.  Needless to say there is very little in the way of “consumer protection” in this law!

The purpose and intent of the BAPCPA laws was to make Chapter 7 more difficult to file and to push Chapter 13 debtors into 5 year repayment plans.   After studying this new law thoroughly for over two years and after filing well over 1000 cases under the new bankruptcy laws, our experience has been as follows:

the new law’s biggest impact has been on high income debtors.

the new law does not affect most middle class families - bankruptcy is still readily available to you.