If you run a legal marijuana business in the State of Oklahoma that is in financial trouble or has failed, then you have probably found out that the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts are closed to you AND your business.
I have put together a State law alternative for a failed marijuana/cannabis business that I think produces a better result for a failed Corporation or Limited Liaibility Company in Oklahoma than a traditional Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. This procedure will help you deal with creditors, shut down the business, liquidate the assets, distribute the proceeds and find a way to move forward with your life.
If you are interested, give me a call — 405-842-8005.
Business fails. You’ve done everything. It wasn’t enough. What do you do now? And then, it gets worse. How do you shut it down? What do you do with the remaining assets? Then, the phone calls. How do you answer them? What do you say?
Can you file for bankruptcy on a failed business? Will that solve the problems? Will it end the chaos?
Well, yes, no, maybe and sometimes. I could have just said, that depends! Sorry, lawyer joke.
If you are in this position, you have probably already figured out that there aren’t any easy answers. Here is where a good lawyer can help:
Shutting down the business, dealing with the landlord, returning collateral, final tax returns, deciding which bills to pay;
Dealing with the phone calls — former customers, suppliers, your banker — what to say and what not to say;
Finding a way forward — figuring out how much of the business debt you are personally liable for and what your options are with respect to that debt;
No lawyer can make it all go away, but we can help you put together a road map to get you to the other side.
If this is you or you are afraid that it might soon be you, call me or another lawyer who is well versed in dealing with debt sooner rather than later.
Every year people use their tax refunds to get caught up on their credit cards. That is great, except all too often it isn’t enough. Sure, it buys them 30 days, maybe 60 before the car needs new brakes or the Fridge dies or somebody winds up in the emergency room with hundreds in co-pays. Suddenly, they are struggling to make the minimum payments again.
If your tax refund isn’t enough to pay it all off — or even most of it off, maybe it is time to think about other options. If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that life is too short to spend it tied to debt we can’t outrun.
Call me at 405-842-8005 or email me at dowlinglawoffice@aol.com. Let’s see what we can do about putting you back in control.
I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people who have just gotten a wage garnishment on a repo’d car that they had completely forgotten about. In most cases, these repos were 20 years ago or MORE! Excuse Me!?! How Does that happen?
The first time I got the call, I was as shocked as the person calling me. Twenty years is a seriously long time, and the worst part of it is that interest (at the contract rate and these don’t tend to be low interest loans) continued to accrue for that entire time.
So, how does that happen? Well, a judgment can be kept alive indefinitely if the creditor is willing to spend the time and money to do it. They have to either have a garnishment issue to a bank or an employer even if they don’t find anything, just issuing it is enough, at least every five years. So, it doesn’t have to go to your bank or your employer. It just has to go to some bank or some employer. The other alternative is to file a Notice of continuation, basically a statement that the creditor still intends to try to collect this judgment, and it needs to remain viable. That is pretty much it. Do that at least every five years for twenty years and then get lucky when you issue that renewing garnishment and it lands at the right bank or the right employer, and all of a sudden my phone is ringing.
Yep, it really does work that way. It used to be that it was rare to see someone trying to collect a judgment for much more than five years. That is changing, and I think it is something our Legislature needs to be looking into changing. Sorry, but a repo or an unpaid credit card in your twenties shouldn’t be able to jump out of nowhere and bite you in your forties.
People frequently tell me that they are afraid that they make too much money to file for bankruptcy. Hogwash. If you have more debt than you can pay, you are going to qualify for at least one chapter of bankruptcy — the question is which one.
Virtually everyone can file either a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy or a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. There is an income and expense qualifier for filing, generally called the Means Test; but it can’t bar you from the Bankruptcy Court, and it is not just income, it also includes reasonable and necessary expenses.
If you can’t pass the Means Test you are still eligible to file a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, which is a form of reorganization intended for individuals — as opposed to the more widely recognized reorganization Chapter, Chapter 11, which is really intended for businesses (although, individuals can and do file Chapter 11 cases).
So, if you are putting off saving for retirement or your kids’ college, if you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, or losing sleep over how you will cover the next unexpected expense; it may be time to swallow hard and give me, or another experienced bankruptcy attorney a call. You work too hard not to give yourself a brighter future.
Before you talk to a bankruptcy attorney, you should consider the following:
The type of bankruptcy that may be appropriate for your situation (Chapter 7 or Chapter 13)
Whether you qualify for the type of bankruptcy you are considering
How much you will have to pay to file for bankruptcy
How you can afford the cost of the bankruptcy process
Whether you have any debts that will not be discharged through bankruptcy
Whether any of your assets might be sold to repay creditors
What kinds of credit counseling are required by the bankruptcy process
What information you will have to provide in the course of a bankruptcy
This list is really just the start of what I discuss with my clients at the initial appointment. That is why my initial appointment is generally about 3 hours long. Yep, you read that right — 3 hours, and if you don’t hire me, you don’t pay for it. (If you do hire me, it is included in the fee.)
So, if you don’t know where to start, call me at 405-842-8005 or send me an email at dowlinglawoffice@aol.com. (Yea, I still have the dialup modem that came with that email address — you know, just in case.)
Also, feel free to look around and see if I have posted articles about whatever questions are bothering you. There is a list of recent posts if you scroll down and a search box.
If you don’t know where to start or what to ask about filing for bankruptcy, start here.
First of all, if you have more debt than you can pay – you are probably eligible for some form of bankruptcy protection.
Second, that last sentence used the term, “bankruptcy protection”, because the idea that people who owe more than they can pay need to be protected from their creditors is at the very heart of the bankruptcy process. Filing a bankruptcy is absolutely the fastest way to stop harassing phone calls, bills in the mail, threats of lawsuits, wage garnishments. Ultimately, a bankruptcy filing can be the first big step towards peace of mind and a good night’s sleep.
Third, bankruptcy is a process that can last anywhere from a few months to a number of years – depending on the chapter of bankruptcy that you file. At the root of this process is disclosing all of your assets and liabilities, some basics about your financial condition and then a conclusion as to how best to put you (and, to a much lesser extent, your creditors) in the best position to move forward. The best part of this conclusion is that it is generally made by you and your lawyer before the case is even filed.
Fourth, the biggest part of filing a bankruptcy is figuring out what your specific options will be and how best to utilize those options to put you in the position you want to be in. This is where a good lawyer comes into play. You want to keep your assets and lose your debt, which is the goal of a well planned bankruptcy filing. The alternative, losing your assets and keeping your debt, does happen but not generally in cases filed by good counsel for clients who honestly and willingly disclose everything they are asked to disclose.
If you have more specific questions, there are hundreds of posts on this blog that should answer most of them. Otherwise, give me a call or send me an email. I am always happy to answer the questions that can really keep you up at night.
In Oklahoma it is pretty easy to tell if you’ve been sued. Most Court dockets can be viewed online. What that means is that you can do a quick search and find all cases (for at least most Counties) in which you have been named as a party. Now, I will caution you, nothing is perfect; but OSCN is pretty close. Yes, occasionally a name gets misspelled and doesn’t turn up in a search, yes, in cases with a huge number of parties, not all of them get indexed correctly, but for the most party, you can tell in just a few clicks whether or not you have been sued by just about anybody.
The website is http://www.oscn.net which stands for the Oklahoma Supreme Court Network; and this is what it looks like.
Oklahoma Supreme Court Network Main Page
In the right hand column, about half way down, you will see “Case Search”. Click it and go to the main search page.
Then, you just fill in the blanks. The top box is COURT SELECTION with a drop down menu that lets you pick the County you are interested in searching. If you leave this blank, it will search all Counties – which can be a bit time consuming if your name is John Smith.
The next option is SEARCH BY PARTY. You need to enter your name as you think it would be listed on a lawsuit. So, if your name is Timothy Scott Brown, and you go by Scott, you might want to search for (Last Name) Brown (First Name) Timothy and then do a second search using Scott as your first name.
A simple mistake with this website is assuming that the wildcard symbol is *. It isn’t. The wildcard is %. So, if you want to search for Timothy and for Tim, enter Tim% in the First Name box and it will search for all first names starting with the letters Tim – so you will get Tim, Timothy, Timmy, Timila, etc.
You can also scroll down to the bottom of the page and limit your search by date range. This is helpful if you want to just see if someone has sued you since the first of the year, for instance. So, if you are concerned about a collection suit, or that your Spouse might have filed for Divorce; and you don’t want to sort through the traffic tickets in your younger days, the personal injury case when some idiot ran a red light and hit you a few years ago or that foreclosure case from the 2010 housing crash.
Remember, this isn’t perfect. Also, remember that like all web search engines, it takes some getting used to, so do run some trial and error searches to make sure you are getting things right. In other words, if you do a search on your name and don’t see your divorce from 2007, you are probably doing something wrong.
This is, however, a great tool for calming those nagging worries.
The pandemic has been tough for everyone, but it has been brutal for a lot of small businesses. If your numbers aren’t coming back, and you don’t know how much longer you can hold on – here are some things to think about.
First, if a CPA does your taxes, call. They know your numbers, they know your systems, they know a lot about running a business, and they can be objective when you can’t.
Second, before you raid your retirement accounts, think long and hard about how much you want to risk for your business. Too often I see people who have emptied their retirement accounts to pay some bills, instead of pulling the plug and filing for bankruptcy; and a year later they are in my office to file for bankruptcy with the same stack of bills all over again, only this time with no retirement savings. Remember, in Oklahoma, as long as you pay your taxes, no one can take tax qualified retirement accounts from you – creditors can’t, even if they sue you and take a judgment, and a Bankruptcy Trustee can’t.
Third, put together a total list of liabilities – for you and for the business. Be as brutally honest as possible about which accounts you are personally liable for and which ones you aren’t.
Fourth, picture where you want to be in five years. Do you have a path to get there?
Finally, call a Bankruptcy lawyer, feel out whether or not you should consider a Chapter 11 filing to restructure the business. Too often small business owners make that decision too late. A Chapter 11 filing, even the new Sub Chapter V is expensive; and there has to be enough business left to save.
The one thing I can promise you is that there isn’t a bankruptcy lawyer in this Country who isn’t sympathetic right now. The pandemic hasn’t been good for us either. So, don’t be afraid or embarrassed. Just call.
As Oklahoma is in the process of reopening after the Caronavirus shut down, it is a reasonable question to ask if the Courts are open. The answer is — well, that depends? Which courts and what do you mean by open?
The Federal Court system, which includes the Bankruptcy Courts, has had a paperless filing system in place since 2006. That means that as a practical matter, the Courthouse no longer accepts paper, and filing by computer doesn’t violate social distancing, so filings have gone on as usual — well, sort of. I am now reviewing and signing documents by remote using videoconferencing and electronic signatures, but actually filing the documents is the same as it was six months ago.
The Federal system has also moved to allow for telephonic hearings, and it has postponed jury trials and large evidentiary hearings.
The State system, however, is not so simple. The State courthouses have been closed to the public for more than a month. Filing of pleadings in existing cases and of new cases continues — by mail, email or fax. In civil matters, the only hearings being conducted are emergency matters.
All of that is in the process of changing, but every County is proceeding according to its own rules and its own schedule.
What my clients want to know is can they still be sued, what happens if they have a pending answer date, when can a house in foreclosure be set for Sheriff’s Sale?
Those answers aren’t easy, but in most cases court clerk’s offices have been accepting new lawsuits for filing. However, answer dates have been extended by order of the Supreme Court. Sheriff’s sales have not been happening, but I am seeing them being reset. Cleveland County has one set in early June, for instance. So, if you have had a house in foreclosure, it is worth it to keep an eye on your mail, the court’s online docket and your County Sheriff’s Sale list.
