Waukegan Bankruptcy Law Blog

Do you remember when the nation's largest lenders were brought to task for their fraudulent foreclosure practices? One of the worst offenses the banks employed was "robo-signing," a process that automatically notarized documents without formal review. People who thought their bank was working with them to modify a mortgage were still subjected to foreclosure, and the practice eventually led to a multi-billion dollar settlement.

Illinois' share of the settlement money amounts to more than $20 million, an amount that the state attorney general has pledged to homeowners who find themselves financially struggling in the face of foreclosure. Millions of dollars will be provided to state-funded legal services that help prevent foreclosure, said Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Prairie State Legal Services, one of the state's largest organizations of its kind, will receive more than $9 million over the next three years. That money will be used to help homeowners navigate or avoid foreclosure proceedings.

An Illinois man who was scheduled to appear in bankruptcy court in a neighboring state has been prohibited from following court orders due to pending criminal charges. The man, who faces Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, cannot leave Illinois because of the criminal charges he faces there.

The man, a monk who had served as the head of an abbey, was scheduled to appear in court to challenge a proposal that would result in the sale of the abbey's property.

Personal bankruptcy filings in northern Illinois are falling even as national numbers continue to creep upwards, but local bankruptcy experts caution Chicagoland readers not to think this means our local economy is booming or that local residents are doing much better than people elsewhere.

During the first three months of 2012, the number of people who filed for personal bankruptcy fell by about 4 percent when compared to the same timeframe in 2011. Bankruptcy filings in northern Illinois hit their peak in 2010 and have been on the downslope since 2011.

Now, one reason for this could be that by 2010, all the people who were able to file for bankruptcy had done so and these days, people who need to file for bankruptcy have not been able to scrape together the money necessary to file. That would indicate, of course, that there is a pent-up backlog of people who need to file for bankruptcy but simply cannot.

Debt is a problem on both a national and personal scale. Unemployment remains high, many people have gone through or are threatened by foreclosure, and consumers are looking for a solution to all kinds of debt. From pinching pennies to filing for bankruptcy, people in debt need to know what their options are.

For people who owe debt in the low thousands, it is often manageable by just being more mindful of the budget. Reducing expenses, making the highest possible payments on credit card debt and other tactics can really put a dent in lower amounts of debt.