Monday, March 12, 2012

Treatment of Student Loans in Bankruptcy

By Gregg Haskell


Student loans obtain special therapy in bankruptcy. They are unsecured loans, comparable to credit cards, medical bills, and payday loans, which signifies they are not attached to collateral by a lien. Having said that, in contrast to these other types of debts they generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

In Chapter 7 bankruptcy situations student loans are place into forbearance till the debtor receives a discharge. These forms of instances last about three and a half to 4 months, so the debtor receives a brief reprieve from getting to make payments during this time. Once the case is completed the creditor could begin collection of the debt.

In Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases the debtor may perhaps or could not be needed to make payments to these creditors, depending on their monthly disposable income. In these sorts of situations the unsecured creditors get paid some or all of their claims depending on the amount of income available to pay them in the reorganization plan and the total amount of unsecured claims that are filed. If there is money available to pay unsecured creditors, the student loans get paid as properly. If there is no dollars for this group of creditors then the student loans go into forbearance for the 3 to five years the debtor is in bankruptcy.

Under very rare circumstances, student loans may well be discharged in bankruptcy. Discharging these forms of debts requires a lawsuit inside the bankruptcy court known as an adversary proceeding. The test for whether or not or not the debtor will be successful in discharging the debt is various based on the state in which the case is filed. One particular popular test that lots of states follow is referred to as the Brunner test.

The Brunner test needs that the petitioner prove that he cannot maintain a minimal standard of living for himself or his dependents, the difficulties preventing the debtor from repaying the student loans are likely to continue for a significant portion of the scheduled period of repayment, and the debtor produced a great faith effort to repay the debt prior to seeking a discharge. This is a very tough test to meet




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