Patrick Walter Begos’s Answers

I would generally recommend that someone with a single problem debt focus on resolving that problem, rather than filing bankruptcy. To use an phrase that came up in the debate quite a bit last night, the question is whether you use a hatchet or a scalpel. With bankruptcy, you give up a lot of control over your assets, and a lot of flexibility in dealing with creditors. Sometimes it's necessary to give all this up if you need to preserve assets that the creditors have almost reached, but...

If your loan is unsecured, and you can't make the payments, a creditor will often be willing to negotiate a different deal, whether it's payment of a reduced amount of the entire debt, or reduction of the monthly payment. You will have to be prepared to demonstrate what your income, assets and liabilities are, to back up a statement that you cannot afford the debt. It is also sometimes difficult to get through to the people who have the authority to modify the loan. There are often gatekeepers...

If your only debt is credit card debt, and if you don't have substantial assets to protect, bankruptcy is likely an unnecessary burden and expense for you. With bankruptcy, you are locked into strict rules about how creditors get treated, and what happens to your assets. You are giving up flexibility and control for whatever "benefits" bankruptcy gives you. A better option would be to have someone negotiate directly with the credit card companies. You say you hired someone to do that a year...

No, your neighbor cannot run a drain line into your yard without your permission, whether the line is above the ground or below the ground. There could be situation where, for example, there's a long-standing easement to run a sewer line out to the street, but that kind of situation doesn't appear to be what's happenning to you

YOu may have a claim against your partner, but it depends on many variables, including: the structure of the business (partnership, llc, etc), what your interest was in the business, how it was capitalized, whether your partner had the authority, under the business structure, to do what he did. It's unlikely that you can get an order freezing operations of the new company, nor would you necessarily want to, because those operations is what's likely to pay the damages you're seeking....

The defendant's liability is going to depend on what the settlement agreement says. If it says the defendant will pay $10 and someone else will pay $5, then the defendant's liability is $10. If it says the defendant is responsible for paying $15, but someone else will be reimbursing the defendant $5, then he's liable for the $15 An attorney can bind his client to a settlement agreement, but here, it seems that you have a question whether the attorney actually was representing the non-party,...

Depending on what you mean by "initial foreclosure notice", it could be many months before you have to worry about losing your house. If you mean a summons and complaint in a foreclosure action, if you did absolutely nothing, and the bank's lawyers were on the ball, it would be around 3-6 months before the foreclosure was completed. I don't recommend doing nothing. If you hire a lawyer who knows what he/she is doing, you can often stay in your house for a year or more after the...

It sounds like the hospital got a judgment against you "by default", meaning that you never appeared to defend against the claims. This is not uncommon. For example, if you were served at your last "known" address, even if it wasn't your actual address, that might be valid service. In my experience, though, it's rare that a defendant has absolutely no idea that a lawsuit is coming or is pending. It's more typically a case of ignoring communications. What you need to do is see if you have...

If you want the money back, you're going to have to sue him. You may or may not have an issue proving that the money you gave him was a loan; he may admit that, or he may dispute it. I'm assuming he didn't sign a promissory note. Assuming you get a judgment against him, you then need to find money or assets out of which you can collect that judgment. So generally, before you go down the road of hiring a lawyer and filing a lawsuit, you want to determine the likelihood that you'll be able to...

Generally an employer in NY can terminate an employee "at will," meaning for any reason or no reason. Some exceptions to this rule would include a termination in violation of the various anti-discrimination statutes (gender, age, disability, etc), or a termination in violation of an employment contract. If you think that either of those exceptions may apply, then you should discuss your termination more fully with a lawyer