Posted On: February 22, 2018

I mean basically, think of it this way, if you come in to see me, and you are having trouble paying your bills and all that, and it’s been a very rough two years for you and so on, so you come in, and now do I not believe you when you start telling me your situation?

I tell you, I will believe you. I’m going to take you at face value. But, I am still going to have to verify your statement of affairs. Period. Now I can’t pull things out of the air. I can’t assume you had a GIC two years ago.

Remember though, if you read the statement of affairs, on Page 3 of the third section, section c, there are a number of questions there, and one of the question is: Within the last 12 months, have you disposed of any property? Now, they don’t mean real estate, they mean property as defined by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, which is anything you’ve got.

Posted On: February 16, 2018

Now it is not really an exercise to be all things to all people, or anything like that, it’s not the way the law works, but it is there essentially to protect the rights of people. And when those rights come into conflict, then the court is asked to step in and decide. But administratively, that is what the Bankruptcy Trustee in Toronto focuses on and the Trustee, well I will tell you the way I describe this thing to most people now a days, I started this two or three years ago, and I have fallen in the habit of doing this all the time now, I describe my job as being like a bus driver. And whether I am driving a personal bankruptcy bus or a proposal bus, or a consumer proposal that you hear about now, whichever one I’m driving, it’s going to take everybody to a certain destination. It’s a route and it’s going to get there and there is going to be an end of the line, and all that kind of stuff. So, who’s on the bus? Well, obviously the debtor is. Be he a bankruptcy debtor or a proposal debtor, it doesn’t matter. He’s using this bus to achieve an end to get to a certain location, to get to a stop that he feels he has to get to. But the minute the debtor steps on the bus, guess who is going to be stepping on right behind him? In fact, trotting on his heels probably. Every single creditor he’s got. What does the driver do? Well, the driver drives the bus, doesn’t he? And the driver, in driving the bus, what the driver’s responsibilities are, really is the safe conduct of all these passengers, equally, to whatever destination they choose to be theirs on this route. Whatever their stop is, if you want. So, think of it that way, and you can use that analogy and actually make it work on all the little minutia on how this process works.

Posted On: February 13, 2018

And most often, one of the reasons why I was a little late today, I had to go to my Mississauga office to meet with a person doing a proposal, consumer proposal, and I signed the report before I left, and the main argument is quite simple, the proposal is offering a net dividend, money in your pocket kind of thing, which is going to be twice as much as anything we can foresee out of the bankruptcy, best case scenario. So whether you think that is sufficient reason to accept the terms offered, that is your business. My call is, if the proposal is offering twice as much as the bankruptcy, I see that as a better deal for you guys. Now, you may be using a very different criteria to determine what is a good deal for you. The Administrator’s opinion on that question is not anything other than an opinion. It’s the old thing, where that opinion and a dollar ninety will get me a large coffee at Tim Horton’s.

Posted On: November 7, 2017

In this video, Lucy Zilio talks with Richard Killen on Richard Killen & Associated 25th Anniversary.

Richard, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee (LIT) talks about more and more people with debt challenges choose a consumer proposal over bankruptcy in Toronto. Watch the video for more information.

Posted On: October 27, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in Bankruptcy in Toronto talks about, What Happens To My Debts If I Go Bankrupt.

People sometimes ask me what is really happening with regards to my debts if I go bankrupt or if I do a consumer proposal? The first thing that happens with regards to your debt, when a person does a bankruptcy or proposal, the first thing that happens is a Stay Of Proceedings goes into effect. It’s kind of like a wall that goes up and separates them from their debts, from their creditors. This Stay Of Proceedings prevents the creditors from being able to continue to pursue them for the money. So, the first thing that happens is that you get this relief from the creditors who you are delinquent with. But eventually, when you go bankrupt or do a proposal, you are essentially trying to get to debt free land. And, when you get your discharge from the bankruptcy, or when you get the certificate at the end of the proposal, to show that you have paid the proposal in full, essentially you have reached debt-free land. So, what happens at the end is, basically, you are no longer responsible for all the debts you had on the date you went bankrupt. Now there is an exception to that, that exception, of course, is a secured creditor. A secured creditor, if you own a home or a car, and you want to keep the car, then you are going to have to keep paying that creditor throughout the bankruptcy or proposal in order to retain the asset.

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.

Posted On: October 20, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in Bankruptcy Toronto talks about, What Are The Different Types Of Creditors.

In a Trustees world, there are three types of creditors, there are secured creditors, unsecured creditors, and contingent creditors. Contingent creditors are if you have co-signed for someone for instance. You may never be asked to pay that thing because the other person is going to do all the paying. But, who knows. The ones we regularly have to deal with, the ones that matter, are secured and unsecured creditors. The vast majority of the ones that we deal with are the unsecured creditors. The unsecured creditors are the ones who don’t have any particular rights in terms of being able to effect repayment of their debt. They have to go through the courts, get judgments and things like that. A secured creditor is a person who has a contract, you have given that person a contract, that specifically designates that they have a right to come and take a particular thing away from you if you don’t pay them. So, a typical one is a mortgage. If you give a mortgage to the bank because they leaned your money to buy a house, then if you don’t make the payments on that loan, that mortgage allows them to come and repossess the house. Same thing with a car loan and things like that. So a secured creditor is essentially a person who doesn’t have a lot to do with a bankruptcy or proposal. They are kind of outside the bankruptcy and proposal.

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.

Posted On: October 13, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in bankruptcy in Toronto talks about, Will I Lose My Personal Possessions If I Go Bankrupt.

There is a Provincial law that regulates what a person might lose, or can lose, actually let me turn it around, there is a Provincial law that regulates what creditors can take from you. If you are not paying them, and they are trying to recover their debt by seizing things. Furniture and personal effects are essentially off the table. Personal effects are essentially completely protected, and furniture, you would have to have furniture that is worth so much money that before it hit the threshold, where a creditor can take it, frankly, I don’t remember a time when I had something like that. So, essentially, this law regulates that people don’t lose their furniture or personal effects. Now, this law applies to a Trustee in a bankruptcy situation, but like I say, who has stuff that’s worth that much? Most people, let’s face it, if you have a couch that your five-year hold has been bouncing up and down on for the last three years or something like that, it’s not going to be worth very much in terms of resale, is it?

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.

Posted On: October 6, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in bankruptcy in Toronto talks about, What Happens To My Co-signor?.

When people do a bankruptcy or even a consumer proposal, if they have a co-signor on one of their debts, they are going to be very concerned about what is going to happen in regard to their co-signor. The fact of the matter is that when you do a bankruptcy or consumer proposal, you are just relieving your own responsibility for those debts. You are not able to do anything for the other person. In other words, if I were to co-sign somebody else’s debt, they go bankrupt, they are not responsible for it anymore but now the creditors are going to want me to pay, and that is just a fact of life. That is what co-signing is all about. Now, whether or not that person has to pay the whole thing at once, usually can be worked out with the creditor but a bankruptcy or proposal will not relieve somebody else from their responsibilities.

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.

Posted On: August 4, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in bankruptcy in Toronto talks about, Do I Have To Pay a Minimum Portion?.

Some people are under the impression that they go bankrupt or for that matter they do a consumer proposal, they are required to pay a certain percentage of what they owe, what their overall debts are. That’s not quite the way it works. In a bankruptcy, it’s not that at all. In a bankruptcy, there is a mechanism that will determine whether or not if you have to make any payments for your creditors into the bankruptcy. It’s based on what you earn, what your monthly salary is. There’s a formula for all that, and a Trustee explains that to you and a Trustee does the calculation and all that. In a proposal, it can be a little bit of a factor trying to determine how much you are going to offer the creditors and all that. But, there is no fixed idea that you have to pay 20% or 10% or 50% of whatever you owe. In a proposal, you offer the best you can, and you try to work out a deal with the creditors that they are willing to accept of what you are going to pay. In a bankruptcy, this formula is applied, if you earn enough money you will pay that money into the bankruptcy in order to obtain your discharge. It doesn’t matter what percentage it is.

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.

Posted On: July 29, 2017

In this video, Richard Killen, a Licensed Insolvency Trustee in bankruptcy Toronto talks about, How long a Bankruptcy lasts.

There tends to be some general misunderstanding about how long a bankruptcy lasts. People hear things about this 7 years business, not being able to obtain credit, and things like that. But, essentially a bankruptcy is a legal process, it has a beginning and it has an end. It begins when you file for bankruptcy. It ends when you are discharged from the bankruptcy and therefore from your debts. So, how long will it last? Well, for the majority of people who have gone bankrupt, it’s their first and hopefully only bankruptcy, they are eligible for the discharge to take place in nine months. If they earn above a certain pre-set amount, an amount the Government sets for your monthly income, then if you earn more than that, bankruptcy might be extended by 12 months, from 9 to 21 months. If you have been bankrupt once before, you are going to be eligible to be discharged automatically in 24 months, not nine. And if you earn again, above that amount, then you will get the 12 months tacked onto that too, so you will end up being bankrupt for 36 months. So, generally speaking, a person goes bankrupt, they are bankrupt either 9 or 24, or 21 or 36 depending on the circumstances. Now, there are other factors that come into play, that could extend the bankruptcy, it would result in a person having to go to court to get their discharge and all that. Now, those are the kinds of things a Trustee needs to explain to you. And there are so many different variables.

If you are uneasy about bankruptcy you should definitely visit a licensed insolvency trustee so that you will be given an advice about your bankruptcy problems.