MICHIGAN BANKRUPTCY ATTORNEY

Laws that provide for the distribution of a debtor’s property among creditors have been a part of civil jurisprudence since ancient times.   On November 6, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, now commonly referred to as the Bankruptcy Code. This complete revision of the federal bankruptcy laws, which became effective on October 1, 1979, was the apogee of decades of reform efforts.  

In October 2005, Congress made sweeping changes to the Bankruptcy Code through the enactment of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). The most recent legislation affecting the Code is the Bankruptcy Technical Corrections Act of 2010 (Pub L No 111-327, 124 Stat 3557 (2010)).

The 2005 amendments changed over 100 years of bankruptcy law. Some of the important changes made by BAPCPA include the following:

• requiring consumer debtors to undergo financial counseling before filing for bankruptcy, 11 USC 109(h), 521(b), and before discharge, 11 USC 727(a)(11), 1328(g)(1)
• means testing for consumer debtors seeking to discharge debts under Chapter 7, 11 USC 707(b)
• bars against repetitive filing through limitation of the automatic stay, 11 USC 362(c)(3)
• elimination of the debtor’s ability to retain secured collateral without redemption or reaffirmation, 11 USC 521(a)(6)