Erratas, Mea Culpas, Credits and Previews

Just a few notes to clean up and clarify some prior postings:

In "Excuses, Excuses - Temporary Waivers of Credit Counseling" I queried how, in the Piontek case, the debtor's lawyer would have felt about the Court's suggestion that $50 of the debtor's $400 retainer -- $274 of which was used for the filing fee -- could have been used for credit counseling. What I should have pointed out is that the Court was not proposing that the $50 come out of the lawyer's hide, but rather that the debtor likely could have qualified to pay the filing fee in installments and could have used some of the funds used to pay the filing fee to instead pay for credit counseling. In the same case, Judge Deller has issued a corrected opinion reflecting the citation to Interim Bankruptcy Rule 1006(b) regarding the payment of the filing fee in installments (rather than 1007(b)).

In "Portion of BAPCPA Debt Relief Agency Provisions Held Unconstitutional" we cited the case as Hersch v. United States. Although we clarified that the decision contained a typo and the lawyer's name is actually Susan Hersh (no "c"), we've been assured that the case caption actually contains the correct spelling. It now appears (with the correct spelling) at 2006 WL 2088270. Thanks to attorney Hersh for letting us know of this significant decision.

Thanks are also due to attorney Dennis LeVine of Tampa for promptly bringing to our attention the Landahl case discussed in "Homestead Cap Gets Another Adherent" (in which he represented the successful trustee).

What's coming? We will have a little more to say about credit counseling (including a BAPCPA Blog sighting in a published opinion!) and then hope next to catch up on decisions on means testing / disposable income issues, car loans, and domestic support obligations. Seen an interesting decision? Please let us know.