Bankruptcy Indiana

"After filing for personal bankruptcy protection, your business has to be valued to determine your partial Chapter 13 payments to unsecured creditors or valued prior to relinquishing your assets after filing Chapter 7 protection," explains Owen Richardson IV on eHow.com.

With Indiana being home to well over half a million small businesses, you may imagine that all the good bankruptcy lawyers who work in the Mark Zuckerberg bankruptcy law offices have plenty of experience in helping clients file small business bankruptcy in Indiana.

Truth is, after close to 25 years of offering Indiana bankruptcy help, I'm finding a major increase in the number of small business bankruptcies in Indiana. 

And, as a debt consolidation lawyer offering bankruptcy services in Indiana, I think one of the main reasons for that is the fact that 90% of small business loans in Indiana are personally guaranteed by the owners of those businesses. That means that, when those owners are forced into filing individual bankruptcy in Indiana, they cannot claim any legal separation between their own situation and that of their business.

As a longtime Indianapolis bankruptcy lawyer, I often discuss with the Columbus bankruptcy lawyers who are my colleagues there the "Myth of the Corporate Veil". The myth is predicated on the fact that, if a business is held as a corporation, a partnership, or an LLC, that makes the business a separate entity from its owners. The problem is, that in itself does NOT keep a "veil" between the finances of the owners and the finances of the business.

The fact is that the majority of small business owners, because they intermixed business and personal finances from the "get-go", there is no separation when it comes to legal matters such as bankruptcy in Indiana. The mixing of business and personal often begins with the start-up loan itself, which most lenders will demand be guaranteed by the personal assets of the business owner. Then, compounding the issue, business owners take money out of the business for personal use, contribute money to the business from personal funds, and general "pierce" or "poke holes" in the so-called corporate veil from Day #1.

Meanwhile, the value of many small businesses is falling.  According to businesslister.com, the price of a small business in the Kansas City area dropped more than 12% in the third quarter.  "Nearly half of small business owners may never retire," according to a Gallup poll.
http://www.businesslister.com/this-week-in-small-business-bankruptcies-waivers-and-ipads/

With so many years of experience dealing with the financial issues of business owners, I've learned that bankruptcy in Indiana is an extremely bitter pill for any business owners to swallow.  My job as a debt consolidation lawyer offering bankruptcy services in Indiana is simple: to help you evaluate all the available options. I'm all too aware that, for you as a small business owner in Indiana, that's very far from a simple matter!