Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney Blog

We tell clients this repeatedly.

Why mention this? It's simple: If a creditor (like a bank, for instance) has direct access to your bank account (as banks often do), then you can consider your checking balance dumped into the rancor pit as your creditor laughs their trademarked Jabba the Hutt laugh above you.

You know...

The pit? The one with a Rancor in it? From Star Wars?

Okay, let's put it this way then: If you owe money to a bank where you also store money in a savings or checking account, there's all kinds of technicalities that allow them to siphon the money out of your account without your knowledge or approval. If you owe money and have not made payments they will seize the opportunity, it's a proven fact. It is what they do.

If you're already filing a Bankruptcy then you may have glossed over some of the information you've been given because there's a lot relating to a bankruptcy that's occasionally hard to digest. This isn't one of those things you can sit around to consider; this is an immediate call to action that should have you setting up a bank account elsewhere ASAP.

You can't afford to wait for someone to remind you that you might want to keep your money, so take care of it before the bank makes it a moot point.

If you're still looking into your options to resolve your financial issues and Bankruptcy is on the list, you MUST keep this in mind. DO NOT bank where you owe money if you are filing a Bankruptcy in Arizona (or anywhere else for that matter), because the bank will swim around in your funds like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin, take photos of themselves with YOUR money and leave a bunch of zeroes lying around in your account.

In order to file a Bankruptcy, you'll have to stop paying your creditors and that includes credit cards. Often people will hesitate because they've worked so diligently to protect their credit score and bank accounts to date that doing things like not paying sounds ludicrous or dishonest. If you have misdirected feelings about protecting an unsecured creditor (this counts for ANY unsecured creditor) you need to stop paying them anyway prior to filing because failing to do so means that creditor will be sued by the trustee, which is a bigger hassle for everyone involved. Even the creditor that you were trying to protect.

If there's just one thing you take to heart from this, let it be that you won't be banking where you owe money when you file Bankruptcy. You need a bank account just on general principle, but you need a bank you can rely upon to store money instead of taking it.

It just depends on how much you care about keeping your money.

Jefferson County is suffering, a roughly four billion dollar debt they cannot pay is forcing them to take the road many other cities are already debating: Chapter 9 Bankruptcy.

Since they are just north of FOUR BILLION dollars in debt, they have set both a record and have assisted in establishing a precedence that politicians and lawmakers have been worried about. The record for most substantial Chapter 9 to date was previously held by Orange County, California and their debt was just shy of two billion dollars making Jefferson County the largest Chapter 9 bk in the nation to date.

The precedent, however, is that cities following in this direction will have and example to drawn upon should similar investment have blown their debt out of control. Jefferson County's debt woes are primarily tied to a sewer system investment, similar to other costly attempts to better a city that led down this same path.

That said, expect to hear about two or three more cities making the same announcement within the next few months simply because it's still an option; that is until the Lobbyists persuade a new set of amendments out of Washington.

I hope that I'm wrong, but we'll find out regardless.

Wandering around downtown I came across the fabled Occupy Phoenix movement. It's not going as awkwardly as elsewhere, but it's clearly having issues of its own as a group.

They consist of normal people from various walks of life, though unlike the folks I had seen back east there were no threats of death or weird individual cries for blood. On the other hand, they seemed determined to turn on eachother as people holding signs argued like mad over... something.

They were arguing about what it was they were protesting.

It's been said that the lack of any coherent leadership has led to some serious problems for the Occupy Wall Street program. Inconsistent cries from large crowds upset by the lack of jobs and the sluggish lending by banks, the same banks that got a zero percent interest loan from our tax dollars.

There's a lot to be mad about in this economy. However, I'm not sure why these same people who came out for the same reason cannot agree on their lists of grievances. If they were producing a manifesto I could understand the tension, but at least they're organized enough to put things before a committee.

The occupation itself is also kind of stymied by city law forcing them to protest within certain hours of the day or at least ensuring no one stays the night on city property. I suspect that the City of Phoenix has seen the chaos reigning elsewhere and intends to nip that in the bud before it happens.

My understanding is that a lot of students are marching in this, which make sense since their debt is ridiculously difficult to discharge and even after graduation there's no jobs waiting for them.

We're massive proponents of changing the special status afforded to Student Loan debt in a bankruptcy because at this point the obvious gouging in inflated prices for education that gets them into nothing. They have to fight for jobs waiting tables, slinging java at a coffee shop or delivering pizza, and while there's nothing wrong with those jobs they aren't what these folks willingly put themselves into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain.

So I get that businesses are fighting for every cent.

I do.

They have absurd overhead, gluttonous taxes and stiff competition in every industry just to stay afloat in these hard times, but the amount of trouble Safeway just bought nationwide is probably more expensive than the $10 they fought for on principle.

It's not like we condone shoplifting, but these folks paid for $50 worth of groceries and were arrested while their child was taken from them before they ever got so much as a reminder about the sandwiches the pregnant mother ate in the store. Criminal Defense isn't exactly my forte, but why did no one bring this up at the register when they were paying for things? You know, with money?

Safeway appears to have bitten off more than they can chew as being tough on shoplifters carries a very different image than a grossly overblown misunderstanding that results in parents having their child torn from their arms. This event is bad advertising that lasts and also stands as a cautionary tale that customers have to consider before entering the stores.

Management might misunderstand something a customer does, but customers won't know until they release the hounds.

Will Safeway go under as a result of this? Not likely, but that doesn't rule out Bankruptcy in Safeway's future now that Target has jumped into the whole "grocer" thing with both feet. Competition for your grocery dollars is tough, but it became much tougher for Safeway as a chain.

If Safeway isn't as "safe" as they pretend to be, why shop there?