Topics
Casenotes: 2007 WDNY Bankruptcy cases
Casenotes: 2008 WDNY Bankruptcy cases
Casenotes: 2009 WDNY Bankruptcy cases
Casenotes: 2010 WDNY Bankruptcy cases
Legislation and Rules Updates
News from the Western District of New York Bankruptcy Court
Notes from BAPCPA
Notes on Bankruptcy Cases outside WDNY
Statistical trends in WDNY bankruptcies
Supreme Court bankruptcy cases
Recent Updates
July 27, 2010
A (Brief) history of New York exemptions, Part I
July 06, 2010
Bankruptcy exemption expansion passes New York legislature, awaits Governor's signature
June 29, 2010
Bankruptcy Exemption may expand in NY - an historical perspective
June 21, 2010
Retroactive application of Increased homestead exemption; Part II: Calloway and Nguyen
June 21, 2010
Bad Faith Chapter 13 plan: case filed 10 days after property transferred: Johnson
Archives
Statistical trends in WDNY bankruptcies
2005 was a watershead year in bankruptcy.?? With the passage of BAPCPA, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, consumer bankruptcies became, at a minimum, more complicated and expensive to file.?? Filings soared -- in Rochester's court alone some 2,000 cases were filed in the two weeks prior to the effective date of the changes (compared to 5,000 cases in all of 2004.)
In 2006, few cases were filed.?? The pre-BAPCPA surge cleared out most cases people were considering at the time, and attorneys were approaching the new changes with caution.?? By 2007, filings started to increase, although at a much lower rate than 2004, the last "normal" year prior to BAPCPA.
In 2008 the economy went south and in many areas of the country bankruptcies soared.?? How does the Western District of New York compare ith national trends??? In this topic, I will post statistical information as to bankruptcy trends in the Rochester - Buffalo area, and compare them to national statistics.
Bankruptcy cases, when filed, are given consecutive case numbers.?? The number is two digits, followed by a dash and five more numbers, such as 09-23456. The first two digits of a case number is the year of filing (09 is 2009; 96 is 1996 etc.).?? The first digit after the dash is the court: Buffalo cases are "1" and Rochester cases are "2,?? The last four digits are the consecutive case number.?? The first case of the year is case 0001.?? So, case 09-23456 is a Rochester case filed in 2009 and would be the 3,456th case filed in Rochester that year.
To calculate trends, I find on PACER (the on-line docketing system of the federal courts) what case number was recently filed, and when a similarly numbered case was filed in prior years.?? This shows whether the year-to-date trends are up or down.
National bankruptcies rise 32% in 2009
Posted by: Peter Scribner
January 05, 2010
Accrding to several sources, bankruptcies in the United States rose 32% in 2009 compared to 2008. The Associated Press reported such a rise in a story dated January 4, 2009. The story reported the biggest increases were in the Western states of Arizona (77%), Wyoming (60%), Nevada (59%), and California (58%.)
The Wall Street Journal reported similar findings in a story filed online January 5. The Wall Street Journal story, using data collected by the National Bankruptcy Research Center, stated that Chapter 7 cases were up 42% in November 2009 compared to November 2008, while chapter 13 cases, where creditors receive some sort of repayment, were up only 12% over the same time period.
Even Canadian bankruptcies jumped in 2009: 45.5% in September, compared to a year earlier, according to the Canadian Press.
Bankruptcies increased only 3% in Rochester in 2009
Posted by: Peter Scribner
January 05, 2010
Case Number 09-23415 was the last case filed in the Rochester Bankruptcy Court in 2009, and case number 09-16043 was the last Buffalo case file this past year. Based on the case numbers, and the last case numbers in 2008, bankruptcies increased 3.0% in Rochester over 2008 (3,317 to 3,415) and bankruptcies in Buffalo increased 7.4% (5,615 to 6,043.)
Between 2007 and 2008, Rochester bankruptcies increased 4.3% and Buffalo bankruptcies increased 8.4%.
The percentage of WDNY cases that are filed in Rochester has declined the past three years:
2007 38.0% of WDNY cases were filed in Rochester
2008 37.1%
2009 36.1%
In 2004, Rochester constituted 37.0% of all WDNY filings.
Based on the last case number filed, total bankruptcies in 2004 were 5,562 in Rochester and 9,465 in Buffalo. Comparing 2004, the last year prior to the 2005 "BAPCPA" changes in the banbkruptcy code, with 2009, Rochester's 2009 filings were 56.5% of 2004, while Buffalo's 2009 filings were 63.8% of 2004.
The trend in Rochester and Buffalo appears to buck the national trend, where bankruptcies across the country increased 32% in 2009 from the previous year.
