Children’s Bank Accounts At Risk in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Kid's savings accounts

By Dave Kelly, Minnesota Bankruptcy Lawyer

Recently a potential client made a hasty exit from my office after I explained that the accounts that had been set up for the children could be at risk in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. What kind of account you set up for your children, how much you put in it and when can all make a big difference. I feel a blog post on this subject coming on. At least one post, maybe two. If you have bank accounts for your children, be sure you tell your lawyer about them.

Please note that in this article I am talking only about Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a whole other topic. Some of the problems described here could be more easily resolved in a Chapter 13.

529 College Savings Accounts

A 529 savings account may be the safest way to save money for your children’s college. Much like a 401K, the money you put in should be tax deductible. Such accounts are not always protected when you file bankruptcy. You have to look at how much you deposited and how long ago that was.

Any amount deposited more than two years before filing the bankruptcy should be protected. Funds that were deposited between two years and one year before the filing date are protected up to $6,425. Any more than that belongs to the bankruptcy estate and probably will be claimed by the bankruptcy trustee. AND any amount deposited within one year before filing the bankruptcy is not protected at all. Again, that amount will be claimed by the bankruptcy trustee.

Uniform Transfer to Minors Act (UTMA) Accounts

These are accounts set up under state law. The account is in the child’s name and is held under the child’s social security number. In your bankruptcy papers it would typically be listed under property held for another. The law requires, however, that an adult be named as the custodian of the account. The adult will manage the account until the child turns 18, then the money can be claimed by the child. How safe or unsafe the money in one of these accounts is depends on when the money was put in and by whom.

As a general rule, if the money in the account came from Grandma or some other third party, it should be safe. Because it never was your money. It would be best if you had records that can prove it never was your money. If you put the money in and now you want to file a bankruptcy, there could be a problem. Minnesota has a fraudulent conveyance statute that has a six year look back period. If that was money that you could have used to pay your debts but you put it in the child’s account instead, the bankruptcy trustee might be able to claw it back out of that account.

Joint Savings Account with Your Child

Of the accounts I am talking about here, this could be the most difficult kind. Your name is on the account along with the child, so how do your prove it’s not yours. For one thing it has to be listed in the bankruptcy petition along with all the other accounts your name is on. If the money did come from you, there is the same “fraudulent conveyance” problem I mentioned above. If the money came from a third party, however, like Grandma, I hope you have good records to prove that. Minnesota does have a statute that says money in a joint account belongs to the person who deposited it. If the money never was yours and you can prove it, the account is probably safe. It would help if the amount is relatively small. The larger the balance, the more likely it is that the trustee would try to make an attempt to grab it.

What if the Money in the Account is from Social Security?

Some children receive a Social Security benefit because their parent has died or or disabled. This money, however, is supposed to be available to the child’s custodian to pay for the child’s living expenses. Social Security money is generally exempt and can’t be touched. But it better be in an account where you can prove that’s what it is. Assuming you are the child’s custodian, it would be best if you were using at least some of it for the child’s expenses. If you just bank the whole thing and never touch any of it, you could appear to not be making your best efforts to avoid bankruptcy. The trustee might not be able to touch the money, but I fear the trustee could object that the case is not being filed in good faith. No such objection has ever happened in any case of mine, but I can’t promise it would never happen if the facts were lined up as I just described.

Conclusion

I have had many cases involving children’s savings accounts fly through with no problem. But as you can see, there are a lot of ifs, buts and maybes concerning these accounts. Don’t assume you know what to do or how to handle these. You need to have the accounts reviewed by an experienced lawyer well in advance of any bankruptcy filing.

Better call Dave. 952-544-6356.

Welcome to My Youtube Channel

welcome to Dave's bankruptcy Youtube channel

By Dave Kelly, Minnesota Bankruptcy Attorney

Youtube recommends that every channel should have a welcome video. The video designated as the welcome video will be the first thing a person sees when they go to a particular channel. The video should be a short statement of what the channel is about and what information can be found there. My channel has videos going back to 2007; but until now there was no welcome video. I just uploaded it a few days ago, and here it is:

Information you can find on my Youtube channel includes but is not limited to the following:

Going to jail for debt
Bank accounts – which ones should be closed
Questions to expect at the hearing
Documents you will be required to produce
What about rental properties in bankruptcy
Property that is exempt
What does bankruptcy cost
Debt settlement programs
7 things to not do before bankruptcy
7 things you should consider doing before bankruptcy

You will also find a lot of information about how to qualify for bankruptcy and what kind of bankruptcy you might qualify for.

It looks like my videos are attracting quite a bit of traffic. Youtube is peppering my videos with all sorts of commercials over which I have no control and from which I don’t get a cent. In order to get paid anything at all from the advertising revenue, they require a lot more subscribers than I currently have. So please do me a favor. If you find my channel helpful at all, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE.

Losing Ground on Payday Loans? Perhaps Bankruptcy is the Answer

Payday loan worries

If you’ve been reading my stuff, you know I’ve said this before.  My clients are good people.  Prior to giving up and deciding to come see me, they have tried just about everything and anything to avoid bankruptcy.  Among the various desperate measures many have tried is the payday loan.  What is a payday loan?  It’s one of the worst, most despicable, predatory schemes ever devised by the greedy and clever.

How does a payday loan work?  Well, it’s aimed of course at people who are employed and who as a result have a regularly scheduled payday.  It can be done at a storefront or on a web site.  These days most of the payday loans I see have been done on line.  One starts by providing bank account information along with employment information.  This includes the amount of a  typical paycheck and when it is ordinarily received. One site I just looked at claims to be able to approve the loan within two minutes.  Typically the amount will be about $500, but sometimes it can be more.  The money will be deposited into the borrower’s checking account within a day or less.

The borrower doesn’t have to repay the loan until after his or her next paycheck is deposited into the checking account.  What can be the harm?  At about the time the pay check from the borrower’s job is deposited into his or her account, the whole loan is automatically repaid by an automatic withdrawal, with interest – lots of interest.  One site I just reviewed states that the annual interest rate will run somewhere between 261% and 1304%.  At first it doesn’t seem that bad.  For example, at an annual rate of 300% the interest on a $500 loan over two weeks is “only” about $58.

The trouble is that once a person starts doing this, it can become very addictive.  As soon as it’s been done it once, when payday comes there’s a big hole missing from the paycheck as soon as the automatic payment of the loan is made.  So what’s the obvious temptation?  Do another one, of course, to make up for the missing money.  Pretty soon it’s not hard to start taking multiple payday loans from the multiple web sites that are available for this purpose.  Then the extremely high interest, rate which didn’t look so bad at first, can really becoming quite a burden.  It can become a treadmill of dependency on these loans.  It can interfere with one’s ability to eat, pay rent or buy gasoline.  Much like the psychology involved in the slot machines at a casino, somebody has figured out just exactly what is required to keep people coming back and paying in. Usually if I see one payday loan it means my client has been at it for a long time.  It may only be one loan, one loan at a time that is.  Sometimes it’s two or three or four at a time, enough to entirely consume each paycheck.

Even after my client has hired me to do a bankruptcy, and after I have advised the client that this is the point at which they should stop paying many of their debts, there is a tendency to assume that this advice somehow does not apply to the payday loan.  It can be a surprise when I say, “it’s your account and it’s your bank and you can stop that automatic withdrawal any time you want”  I have had a few clients leave my office in a rush to try to make it to the bank in time to stop the next withdrawal.

The StarTribune recently published a feature article about payday loans and one of the big businesses in Minnesota that makes them.  According to the article the average interest rate customers in Minnesota pay for a payday loan is 277%.  Sounds like theft to me, but Minnesota is among 36 states which allow it.  If you find yourself going nowhere and losing ground on this payday loan treadmill, it’s probably time to call me for a free over the phone screening as to whether you qualify for a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

This post is for general information purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.  Nothing on this site is intended to be a substitute for retaining a competent attorney.  I am a debt relief agency.  I help people file for relief under the federal bankruptcy code.

 

Avoid Having your Bank Accounts Seized when you File Bankruptcy in MN

I don’t know what banks and credit unions are doing in other parts of the country.  I speak here only of what I have seen and heard about here locally in Minnesota, and specifically just the Twin Cities area. Here in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities area, there is a substantial danger that your savings and checking accounts will be seized or frozen by your bank or credit union when you file a personal bankruptcy.  I have always believed it to be a despicable thing to do.  Some banks and credit unions are worse than others at doing this.  When you choose a lawyer to handle your bankruptcy case, you might want to make sure that he or she is a person with enough experience to be aware of this problem and how to head it off before it happens.

The problem is this.  If the bank or credit union is one or your creditors, you can expect that institution to seize your accounts as soon as they are notified of the bankruptcy.  If this is not planned for it can result in quite a surprise – checks bouncing, a debit card that has stopped working, and the evaporation of money you thought you had.  There are some banks that are worse than others  when it comes to this problem.  They might freeze your account even if they are not a creditor, especially if your account has a fairly large sum of money – something in excess of $3,000.  I don’t want to mention them bank by name here, but I believe I did mention one in this video.

You should expect your bankruptcy attorney to coach and advise you as to how this is to be avoided. What I tell my clients is that if they have an account with a bank or credit union which they owe money to, that account should be closed well in advance of the filing of the bankruptcy case – whether it’s a Chapter 7 bankruptcy or a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you don’t close that account, the bank or credit union will claim a right of setoff against your money in the account, which is a fancy way of saying that they will seize the money.  There are certain banks where all accounts should be closed if at all possible, whether you owe them money or not. Once they seize the money you won’t get it back – or at least usually won’t.

So the thing to do is to close all such accounts before you file your bankruptcy case.  It takes planning of course. I’m not saying you should try to live without a checking account.  What you need to do is open an account at a bank which is NOT one of your creditors, and get all your automatic deposits and automatic withdrawals up and running with the new account before we file your bankruptcy case.  I believe that the best banks to use for this purpose are the small neighborhood banks – for example a bank with a name that starts with “State Bank of …” or “Citizens Bank of …” The process of getting the new account set up and getting the auto deposits and auto payments moved over to and set up at the new bank may take a few weeks, but I consider this to be part of the normal planning and preparation that goes into making your case as painless as possible.

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