Free Republic

VALLEJO — A federal judge ruled Friday that Vallejo is eligible for municipal bankruptcy protection, setting the stage for a major battle over possible dissolution of city employee union contracts. The decision came less than a week after the close of a monthlong court clash between the city and union attorneys. City insolvency challengers, including three major unions, had argued that the city did not meet the legal requirements for bankruptcy protection. U.S. Chief Judge Michael McManus soundly rejected that contention in a 52-page ruling. With bankruptcy protec-tion, the city may adjust its debts without immediate reprisal from its creditors....

WASHINGTON - A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups. ADVERTISEMENT Barack Obama's presidential campaign said Biden helped forge a bipartisan compromise on the measure, which is now law and makes it harder for consumers to obtain bankruptcy protection in the courts. MBNA's consulting payments to Hunter Biden, first reported by The New York Times, followed his departure in 2001 from the...

Bennigan's, Steak & Ale file for bankruptcy By Lisa Baertlein Tue Jul 29, 6:32 PM ET The company behind the Bennigan's and Steak & Ale chains filed for one of the largest restaurant bankruptcies ever on Tuesday, closing outlets and cutting jobs. S&A Restaurant Corp, and three dozen other entities including various Bennigan's and Steak & Ale affiliates, submitted Chapter 7 bankruptcy petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Texas, seeking to sell assets. The company is a subsidiary of Metromedia Restaurant Group and operates and franchises Bennigan's and Steak & Ale restaurants. The companies fall...

I blame Bennigan's for my addiction to deep-fried mozzarella sticks. The craving still resurfaces regularly, 20 years after working in the restaurant and serving probably thousands of the little golden cheese sticks with a ramekin of marinara sauce. News reports indicate that Bennigan's may be closing its heavy dark-wood doors for good today (we're not sure yet, but many stores are closed), and it's causing an unexpected tinge of sadness. Working part-time at Bennigan's in Topeka, Kansas, for about four years in the '80s helped me pay my college bills, taught me about the service industry and introduced me to...

The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to the failure of donor countries to fulfill their pledges to fund the Palestinians, PA officials in Ramallah said Monday. The officials told The Jerusalem Post that the PA wouldn't be able to pay July salaries to more than 150,000 public servants and may be forced to close down several government institutions as a result of the deepening crisis. The officials disclosed that the deficit in the PA budget has risen in the past six months from $1.6 billion to $2b. "We are facing a real crisis," a top PA...

Does government do enough to help the poor? John McCain and Barack Obama could not be more divided on their approach. Obama’s Web site even has a section entitled “poverty,” with a large list of new antipoverty programs, while McCain's doesn’t. Yet, this is part of a bigger difference between the campaigns in whether to single out specific groups for help. While Obama’s Web site includes issue headings for “women,” “rural,” “seniors” and “disabilities,” McCain’s Web site generally focuses only on broad "issues" that affect everyone, such as “energy,” “education,” and “economic plan.” Both Web sites have sections on veterans....

SACRAMENTO — Resurrecting negotiations between Vallejo employee unions and city negotiators could be the next step in Vallejo's Chapter 9 bankruptcy saga, attorneys for the city and unions agreed Wednesday. The attorneys disagreed, however, on what that move would mean for Vallejo's future. Opening arguments on Vallejo's bankrupt status were heard in U.S. Bankruptcy Court before Chief Justice Michael McManus on Wednesday. McManus must first decide if the city meets the criteria for bankruptcy before considering voiding employee union contracts, set to expire in June 2010. The city filed for bankruptcy protection May 23, with the unanimous backing of the...

Ethanol Industry in DistressBusiness Adviser: 16 Ethanol Plants Filing Bankruptcy, Many More to Come By Todd Neeley DTN Staff Reporter 06/20/08 4:37:15 PM OMAHA (DTN) -- The U.S. ethanol industry is in trouble and can expect to see a rash of bankruptcies and dismantling of at least some production, according to a specialist who helps companies in distress. Alex Moglia, president of Moglia Advisors based in the Chicago area, said he knows of at least 16 ethanol companies that are filing for bankruptcy, and there will be at least two to three times that number filing within the next year....

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (NYSE:GM - News) will need to raise as much as $15 billion in cash to shore up liquidity and bankruptcy is "not impossible" if the U.S. auto market continues to slump, Merrill Lynch said. Other analysts have suggested GM, whose shares fell to a new 54-year low on Wednesday, needs to raise funds to ride out the downturn in the U.S. auto market through 2009. But Merrill's estimate of GM's financing needs is the highest yet. It also carried the most stark warning of the bankruptcy risk for the largest U.S. automaker. GM declined...

Taxpayers in Contra Costa (and around the world) are closely watching the implosion of the City of Vallejo into bankruptcy and wonder at potential outcomes. This week Vallejo asked judges to void four contracts with unionized public employees. A hearing is set for July 23. The city faces its first major bankruptcy milestone, tomorrow, Friday June 27, when city and union officials present their initial arguments to the court. With an eye toward similar potential disaster in Contra Costa County, some wonder if it’s even possible to void such contracts. One observer opined that pro-union Democrat legislators have helped install...

Vallejo, Calif., took the extreme step of filing for bankruptcy to get out of generous obligations to public employees. Other cities and states are watchingThe jig is up. For years, politicians have been playing what amounts to a multi-trillion-dollar shell game with state and local pensions. They've doled out lush retiree benefits to their heavily unionized workforces, knowing that they could shove the cost for those benefits onto future generations of taxpayers. But a recent financial bombshell dropped by a San Francisco suburb shows why that shell game is now starting to unravel in a nasty way. And it's a...

The Wall Street Journal reports that the stagnant economy and spiraling commodity prices have brought back the specter of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for a Detroit Three automaker – especially for General Motors. Market prices for GM's credit-default swaps imply a greater risk of bankruptcy for GM than for Ford, according to the Journal report, and the smaller car maker also now sports a stock-market value almost 50 percent higher than GM's.

NEW YORK (AP) The San Francisco Bay area suburb of Vallejo on Friday became the largest California city to file for bankruptcy protection as it struggles with a mounting budget deficit from rising employee costs and declining tax revenue. The city filed Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Sacramento. Vallejo, a mostly blue-collar city of 120,000 about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, has been hit especially hard by the mortgage crisis and has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the U.S. Below are a few questions and answers about what happens when a city files for...

VALLEJO, Calif.—The city of Vallejo has filed for bankruptcy protection to deal with a ballooning budget deficit caused soaring employee costs and declining tax revenue. The San Francisco Bay area suburb of about 120,000 residents is the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. Mayor Osby Davis says the city's attorneys filed papers seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Sacramento on Friday. The City Council voted to authorize the city manager to file for bankruptcy on May 6 after months of failed negotiations with its public safety unions. Some officials blame the financial crisis on labor contracts they...

The city of Half Moon Bay found itself in serious financial trouble last year after U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the city had to pay a local developer $37 million - $41 million with legal fees added. The judgment amounted to close to four times the city's annual budget, or more than $3,000 per resident in this city of fewer than 13,000. Bankruptcy loomed. Walker found that a city drain project inadvertently had created wetlands on developer Charles "Chop" Keenan's property. When Half Moon Bay later cited those same wetlands as grounds to stop Keenan from developing...

Yesterday the Senate voted to end debate on a bill that requires police officers, firefighters and other first responders across the nation to submit to collectively bargaining. Before the Senate votes on final passage of the bill later this week, lawmakers really ought to take a very close look at a city council vote in the sleepy California town of Vallejo last week. The Vallejo City Council voted May 6 to become the largest city to ever declare bankruptcy in California. The cause of Vallejo’s demise? Contracts with fire and police unions account for 74% of the city’s $80 million...

Hoping to prevent a city bankruptcy that would suspend their union contracts, Vallejo's police, firefighters and rank-and-file employees went public Monday with an offer to cut their salaries and give up raises. Capping months of fiscal agonizing, the City Council voted last week to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy following dire predictions by city staff of imminent insolvency. The petition for bankruptcy is expected to be filed sometime this week, said city spokeswoman Joann West. Only one other city in California - Desert Hot Springs (Riverside County) in 2001 - has gone into bankruptcy. Orange County took the same step...

By declaring bankruptcy, Vallejo has thrust itself into the national spotlight as a test case for thousands of floundering cities desperate to unload their extravagant public employee contracts. "There's a wave of this coming across the U.S.," said Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities who worked on restructuring Orange County after it declared bankruptcy in 1994. "What happens in Vallejo could definitely set a precedent." Battered by the plummeting housing market and skyrocketing public employee contracts, Vallejo made dubious history Tuesday night by becoming the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. The North Bay city of 117,000 was...

Troubled Journal Register Co. warned late Friday in a regulatory filing that it probably will be in default of its loan covenant before the end of July. Journal Register (OTC: JRCO.PK) said it was in compliance with the total leveraged financial covenant in the first quarter of the year ended March 30, but it is likely to be in default in the second quarter unless business picks up in some unexpected dramatic way. "Unless there is significant improvement in the company's operating results during the second fiscal quarter or the company is successful in obtaining an additional amendment to the...

The question you have to ask about the officially bankrupt city of Vallejo, and other California cities with similar financial profiles, is this: Didn't you know something was wrong when you realized you were spending 75 cents of every dollar in the general fund on public safety costs? In a broader sense, how can any city anywhere make a legitimate claim of vibrancy when so many essential social services are shortchanged? It seems we're about to find out in Vallejo, a city with a population of 117,000 whose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection...

Vallejo has become the first city of its size in California to seek bankruptcy protection. The decision to file for bankruptcy came in a unanimous vote by the city council Tuesday night as hundreds of residents watched. The dramatic vote came despite a last-minute appeal by state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, and an aide for Assemblywoman Noreen Evans for the city to avoid bankruptcy. Mayor Osby Davis said he had "turned over every rock he could find to find a solution" but none came and there is no longer an ability for the city to pay its debts. Vallejo...

Vallejo has become the first city in California to file for bankruptcy because it didn't have enough money to provide basic services. This is dreadful news for Vallejo - and its citizens - but it's also an ominous report for the rest of us. The city council's unanimous decision Tuesday night, which came after hours of impassioned public comment, represents a failure of Vallejo's police and firefighter unions to understand basic economic realities. The unions - whose members are among the highest-paid in the state - refused to allow the city to cut their pay. Perhaps they didn't believe that...

VALLEJO — With hundreds of concerned residents looking on, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously late Tuesday to file for bankruptcy, making the city the first of its size to seek protection due to unaffordable labor contracts. The dramatic vote came despite a last-minute appeal by state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, and an aide for Assemblywoman Noreen Evans for the city to avoid bankruptcy. Four council members — Michael Wilson, Tom Bartee, Hermie Sunga and Erin Hannigan — joined Mayor Osby Davis in switching in favor of filing for bankruptcy. In the past they had been part of a...

The fallout from losing its New Jersey casino license will force the owner of Tropicana casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said Monday. --- The bankruptcy filing would cover nine properties: The Tropicana Casino & Resort in Las Vegas; Bayou Caddy's Jubilee Casino in Greenville, Miss.; Casino Aztar in Evansville, Ind.; Horizon Casino Hotel in Vicksburg, Miss.; Horizon Casino Resort and the MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, both in Lake Tahoe, Nev.; the Tropicana Express Hotel & Casino in Laughlin, Nev.; River Palms Resort & Casino in Laughlin, Nev.; and the...

Vallejo's city manager advised the City Council on Friday to declare bankruptcy next week after weeks of negotiations with police and fire unions failed to turn around the city's economic tailspin. If the council votes Tuesday to file for Chapter 9 protection, the city of 117,000 people would be the largest in California to declare bankruptcy - and the first to do so because of long-term economic woes. City Manager Joseph Tanner made the recommendation after city officials scrambled for two months to fix the budget before the fiscal year ends on June 30, when the city faces a projected...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare is lurching toward disaster and it is too late for the Bush Administration and Congress to do anything about it, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Tuesday. He said the next administration will have to act to stop rising costs and get control of the $400 billion federal health insurance plan for the elderly, which now covers 44 million people. "Higher and higher costs are being borne by fewer and fewer people. Sooner or later, this formula implodes," Leavitt said in a speech to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute...

Vallejo will inch closer to financial ruin Tuesday when the City Council lets pass its do-or-die date to avert bankruptcy. City staff members have been unable to come up with a detailed, long-term financial plan because negotiations with the police and fire unions are still ongoing. The city is asking for steep concessions from the unions, whose members are among the highest paid in the Bay Area and whose salaries comprise about 74 percent of the city's budget. "We had hoped to have an agreement by April 22 to give to the council," said Mayor Osby Davis, who has sat...

Home retailer Linens 'n Things is expected to file for bankruptcy protection by early next week, according to reports, a warning sign for retailers already struggling in the economic downturn. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Clifton, N.J., retailer was expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection by Tuesday, quoting several people close to the matter. Formerly a publicly-traded company, Linens 'n Things was acquired by private-equity group Apollo Management in Feb. 2006 for $1.3 billion. While not a complete shock to investors, the move would mark the first major retailer to seek protection. Signs of trouble...

Washington - Republicans and business-friendly Democrats on Thursday scuttled a plan to give people threatened with losing their homes more leverage in winning favorable loan terms from their lenders in bankruptcy courts. The Senate killed the bankruptcy plan by a 58-36 vote on the first full day of debate on a bill designed to boost the slumping housing market.The Democratic-backed bankruptcy law changes, opposed by banks and their GOP allies and a handful of Democrats, would have given judges the power to cut interest rates and principal on troubled mortgages to help desperate borrowers trapped in subprime mortgages keep their...

American Bankruptcy Institute says first-quarter filings rose as households creak under heavy debt load. The number of individuals filing for bankruptcy surged during the first-quarter as American households struggled to stay on top of debt, according to a report released Wednesday. The American Bankruptcy Institute said that consumer bankruptcy filings increased 27% nationwide in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period last year. In March alone, 86,165 individuals filed for consumer bankruptcy - a 13% increase over the 76,120 cases filed in February. "Bankruptcies are rising due to the heavy burden of household debt and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted against adding an amendment to a housing market rescue bill that would have given bankruptcy judges the power to ease mortgage payment terms for some distressed borrowers. Offered as an amendment by Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin to a broad bill hammered out earlier this week, the amendment was opposed by Republicans and the banking industry. The overall bill, estimated to cost $15 billion to $20 billion, would give homebuilders and other businesses hit hard by the recent housing slump a $6 billion temporary tax break. It would also give the...

The former comptroller general of the United States, David Walker, said in a recent interview that the unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare was $20 trillion in 1990. The Social Security and Medicare trustees issued their annual report last week indicating that the unfunded liability for those two programs is now $53 trillion. Congress has done absolutely nothing to curtail this national financial tidal wave. For decades, some members have talked – only talked – about the problem. But all of them have allowed the unfunded liabilities to explode, and the national debt to grow to almost $10 trillion....

Thornburg Mortgage has said it is trying to raise almost $1bn (£500m) in extra capital to avert a possible bankruptcy filing. The lender, which specialises in big home loans, also plans to offer its lenders a 27% stake in the company. The measures will significantly dilute the stakes of existing shareholders and the company's shares fell 47%. Thornburg said that without the new capital it may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection. Jumbo loans In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company warned that bankruptcy would be a possibility because it would have to sell off the...

While Vallejo's finances were plunging faster than a roller coaster at the Six Flags amusement park, the city's firefighters were going abalone diving, grilling tri-tip and drinking cocktails on the public's dime, records show.Under their contract, the firefighters union has been allowed since 2003 to charge the city 600 hours a year - at a cost of more than $24,000 annually - for union activities that were approved by the union's chief. The junkets included an annual Seafood Extravaganza at the fairgrounds, a 10-kilometer run ending with a party at the amusement park and a dunk tank at the Waterfront...

The city of Vallejo was in trouble long before James Moore bought a freshly butchered pig's head, mounted it on a Weber barbecue grill and wheeled it into a packed City Council meeting last week. "Vallejo has been hogtied by its police and fire unions," Moore, a local businessman, said later. "The unions are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Do I need to bring a dead goose to next week's meeting? I hope not." Crippled by a free-falling economy, an inability to create tax revenue, management recklessness and a legacy of generous contracts for police officers and...

March 7, 2008 Major US homes lender near bankruptcy Tom Bawden in New York Thornburg, the American mortgage lender, was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy last night as a key creditor demanded that it liquidate assets after failing to put up $28 million (£13.9 million) in extra collateral. Thornburg’s escalating credit crisis coincided with new data showing that foreclosures on American properties hit a record in the fourth quarter of 2007. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 12,040.4, down 214.60, and the S&P 500 index fell by 29.35 points to finish at 1,304.35 as investors were forced to...

VALLEJO -- Vallejo's fire union has unanimously ratified a hotly debated four-month labor agreement aimed at keeping Vallejo out of bankruptcy court and finding a long-term solution to the city's fiscal crisis. Forty-six of the 78 members of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1186 approved the labor agreement in secret ballots cast Tuesday and Wednesday, said fire union president Kurt Henke. "It was unanimous," Henke said. "If people weren't in favor of it they would have shown up to vote no," he said. Some could not cast ballots because they were on duty, he said. Secret ballots cast...

You know that Sharper Image gift card you got for Christmas? Right now, it's worthless. And other gift cards in your wallet could lose their value, too. As more retailers file for bankruptcy or go out of business, more than $75 million in gift cards are at risk of becoming worthless pieces of plastic this year. [snip] The number of retail bankruptcies or liquidations this year is expected to reach the highest levels since the 1991 recession. Brian Riley, senior analyst at The TowerGroup, estimates that shoppers could lose more than $75 million just from stores and restaurant closings in...

VALLEJO -- A tentative labor agreement designed to keep Vallejo out of bankruptcy court calls for police and fire employees taking a 6.5 percent pay cut, the closure of two fire engine companies and fewer on-duty staff members. The tentative agreement, reached Thursday and released Friday evening, is designed to close a $6 million general fund shortfall. It also provides for a one-year contract extension to 2011, but only if the two sides can work out a long-range fiscal plan by April 22. "Execution of the agreement will allow the parties a short period of time to develop and begin...

VALLEJO -- Eleventh hour talks between city officials and public safety labor unions resulted in a tentative agreement today designed to keep Vallejo's coffers from running dry in a month, city and union officials said Thursday. Both sides held last-minute talks to salvage a deal Wednesday night and Thursday, hours before the council was set to vote on possibly filing for bankruptcy. Mayor Osby Davis revealed the existence of the tentative agreement shortly before entering a closed-door session with the council on labor negotiations. Vallejo firefighters union president Kurt Henke said "we have a framework of an agreement. The council...

Vallejo may decide to file for bankruptcy today, which is a dire and difficult situation for all who live, work and do business there. What tilts this story over into tragedy, however, is that Vallejo is only the first large city in California to find itself in such a mess. Expect many other cities in California - including perhaps your own - to be faced with the same disaster soon. What happened in Vallejo is a preview of what is slowly developing all over the state, and it can't be blamed on the crumbling housing market. Property values have eroded,...

Vallejo, Calif. (AP) -- Officials were expected to meet Tuesday night to discuss Vallejo's financial crisis that has it edging closer to declaring bankruptcy. Labor talks aimed at keeping Vallejo solvent broke down Monday, and top administrators recommended the City Council file for bankruptcy protection. Vallejo, a former Navy town northeast of San Francisco, faces a $6 million shortfall and officials say it will run out of money by the end of March. Chapter 9 bankruptcy would allow Vallejo temporary protection from creditors while a plan, subject to court approval, is devised to regain fiscal stability. The city would join...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- After years of declining sales, The Sharper Image -- known for creature comforts and gadgets like robotic massage chairs and $170 toothbrushes -- has gone belly-up, declaring bankruptcy Wednesday. In a brief statement, Sharper Image (SHRP: SHRP 0.41, -1.03, -71.5%) announced it had filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, but that it "intends to continue to conduct business as usual while it devotes renewed efforts to resolve its operational and liquidity problems and develops a reorganization plan."

The city of Vallejo is on the brink of becoming the first California city ever to declare bankruptcy, City Council members said Tuesday. Vallejo may run out of cash as early as March, council member Stephanie Gomes said. "Not only that, but now we have 20 police and fire employees retiring because they are afraid of not getting their payouts," Gomes said. "That means we have another few million dollars in payouts that we had not expected. So the situation is quite dire." Gomes said the situation has been building for more than a decade. "This has been happening for...

WASHINGTON - Moving company Allied Van Lines Inc., along with its corporate parent Sirva Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, the latest victim of a heavy debt load and the downturn in the U.S. housing industry. The company, which is based in Westmont, Ill., listed assets of $924 million and debts of $1.2 billion. The company has more than 100,000 creditors. Sirva filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan after reaching a deal with its lenders to cut its debt by some $200 million. Under the company's "prepackaged" bankruptcy plan, Sirva's lenders will trade a portion...

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Senator Barack Obama, vying for the Democratic presidential candidacy, vowed to change bankruptcy laws and cap interest rates during his campaign tour in Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. During what his campaign dubbed a "Roundtable on Economic Opportunity" there, Obama called for an exemption in the 2005 bankruptcy bill for people who can persuade a bankruptcy court that they filed for bankruptcy because of debts caused by medical expenses. His proposal also includes extending the 36-percent limit on payday loans to military members to all Americans; encouraging banks, credit unions and...

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner in the contest for the all-time best title for any document ever filed in the SCO v. the World litigations. I know that some of you have gotten attached to the Sur-Sur-Sur Replies of yore. But this tops everything. SCO has filed the following:Senior Secured Super-Priority Debtor-in-Possession Credit Agreement Teasing. It's what they call these things. It's about the "Litigation Credit Facility" mentioned in the APA, the $10 million York is willing to loan SCO to fund the "Specified Litigation". And guess which that is: "the IBM litigation and the Novell Litigation and...

Federal Liabilities Now Equal $175,000 for Every American By Terence P. Jeffrey CNSNews.com Editor in Chief November 08, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - Deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000, says a new report by David Walker, comptroller general of the United States. On Tuesday, Walker sent the results of his audit of the federal debt to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The audit revealed that, as of Sept. 30, the last day of fiscal year 2007, the U.S. government owed $8.993 trillion. Of this...

This may be Johari Reeves' last chance to catch up on her mortgage payments. The credit cards, she'll worry about later. "We fell behind (with the mortgage) and twice we agreed to new repayment schedules that didn't work out," said the 31-year-old, a compliance officer at a small bank on Chicago's blue-collar South Side. "It's been a lot of stress. But this time, if all goes well, we should be able catch up." In August 2006, Reeves and her husband bought a $214,000 home with almost no money down, leaving them with a monthly payment of $1,636 -- higher than...

Chapter 13 Filings Gain In Popularity Because They Halt Foreclosures ...In recent months, however, an increasing number of homeowners have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 13, which staves off foreclosure proceedings while the homeowner works out a plan to pay off mortgage debt and other obligations over time -- usually three to five years. To qualify, debtors must have a regular income and must stay current on their new bills. About four in 10 filers today are filing under Chapter 13 -- up from three in 10 two years ago. The 2005 change in bankruptcy laws was designed in part...